Susanna Reid has revealed that she was left in tears while interviewing young criminals for the documentary Children Who Kill.
The Good Morning Britain host told of her ‘extremely distressing’ interview with murderer Joshua Phillips, who at the age of 14 killed his eight-year-old neighbour Maddie Clifton.
Susanna travelled to Cross City Correctional Institution in Dixie County, Florida, where the now-33-year-old is incarcerated as part of the programme. It will be aired tomorrow at 9pm.
The 47-year-old told The Sun: ‘I’ve been affected by all the documentaries I’ve done but the thing about this is the child who was murdered was so young.
‘I was in tears doing the interviews — and I found everything about meeting Phillips upsetting, distressing and heart-breaking.’
The Good Morning Britain host told of her ‘extremely distressing’ interview with murderer Joshua Phillips (pictured right)
At the age of 14, Joshua Phillips (pictured left at the time) killed his eight-year-old neighbour Maddie Clifton (pictured right)
TV star Susanna found the interviews so upsetting that she needed to take a break after returning from filming in the US.
The mother-of-three added:’It took quite a long time after I got back from the States to clear my mind — the first thing I did was hug my kids a little tighter.’
It comes after she filmed a documentary on taxi rapist John Worboys as part of ITV’s Crime and Punishment series.
The programme is due to be aired later this month following a court challenge into his planned release after less than a decade behind bars.
Worboys was jailed indefinitely in 2009, with a minimum term of eight years, for drugging and sexually assaulting women passengers.
He was accused of carrying out sexual assaults on more than a hundred women after spiking their drinks.
The Parole Board recommended Worboys’ release without contacting any of his victims, causing an uproar.
At his sentencing Worboys was told he must serve a minimum of eight years in prison for his attacks and would not be released until officials were convinced he did not pose a threat to women.
Yet the 60-year-old’s release has been signed off by the Parole Board, despite a pre-sentencing report in 2009 finding that he was ‘a repetitive predatory sexual offender’.
It comes after Susanna filmed a documentary on taxi rapist John Worboys (pictured) as part of ITV’s Crime and Punishment series
Police believe Worboys may have carried out more than 100 attacks, despite convictions for just 12.
Campaigners are questioning why further convictions were not sought, as Worboys would likely have been given a much longer sentence preventing him from being released in 2018.
Worboys will now have to report to probation staff each week, having spent ten years behind bars and a period on remand.
A former porn actor and stripper, Worboys attacked numerous women during a five-year period between 2002 and 2008.
Many of his victims were young women who had been drinking in trendy night spots in the West End and Chelsea.
On several occasions he offered to drive a woman home for a fraction of the normal cost, or even for free, claiming that he lived in their direction.