Channel 4 is revisiting the Katie Simpson showjumper case in The Showjumper Murder, returning to the death of a 21-year-old rider who was first treated as though she had taken her own life. Katie Simpson died in August 2020 after catastrophic injuries in County Londonderry, but the investigation later moved toward rape and murder charges.
Katie Simpson in August
Katie was rushed to hospital after Jonathan Creswell said he found her hanging from a stairwell. He also said she had suffered her injuries in a horse riding accident earlier that week. She never regained consciousness and died days later. Medical staff raised concerns about the injuries, including vaginal bleeding, which pushed the case away from the original explanation.
Armagh takes over
In January 2021, a police team in Armagh took over from Maydown PSNI Station in Derry. By March 2021, Creswell had been charged with the rape and murder of Katie Simpson. Prosecutors alleged that he attacked her and raped her before staging the scene to resemble a suicide, a shift that turned a single death into a wider investigation.
Jonathan Creswell and 37 others
Creswell stood trial in 2024, but the court was told he had been found dead at his home after taking his own life. Earlier this year, an independent review said the PSNI’s handling of the case had been marked by institutional misogyny and criticised the initial investigation for accepting the suicide narrative too readily. The same review said it missed opportunities to gather evidence against Creswell early on, and it was established that he had groomed Katie from the age of 10.
The scale now sits beyond one case: a total of 37 other victims came forward with allegations against Creswell, and the documentary’s value is in forcing that pattern back into view rather than leaving Katie Simpson’s death filed away as a closed suicide story. The unanswered question is what specific evidence first exposed that her death was not a suicide, and that is the detail viewers will likely be looking for when the documentary lands.
