A DOCUMENTARY telling the story of one of Britain’s most notorious killers and longest serving prisoners, Donald Neilson, will be shown on television tonight.

The Black Panther Murders: Born to Kill? will be shown at 8pm tonight on Channel 5.

Neilson, known as the “Black Panther”, kidnapped and murdered 17-year-old Lesley Whittle in 1975. The victim was daughter of George Whittle, who ran Kidderminster-based coach company Whittle.

He had left a ransom note at her family home in Highley, Shropshire, demanding £50,000 and leaving instructions to wait for a telephone call at Kidderminster town centre's Swan shopping centre.

Neilson had learned the teenager had inherited a fortune and later took Lesley to a disused drainage shaft in a beauty spot, in Kidsgrove, Staffordshire.

A post mortem suggested that she had been killed within 48 hours of her capture.

Neilson was serving four life sentences for the murder of Lesley and three sub-postmasters, Donald Skepper, Derek Astin and Sidney Grayland, when he died in custody in 2011, aged 75, after suffering breathing difficulties.

He became Britain's most wanted man before he was finally brought to justice in 1976 at Oxford Crown Court. In 2008 he was told he must die in prison.

Anyone who misses the programme can watch it on the channel's online catch-up service Demand 5.