Nearly three decades after a brutal road rage murder on the M25, the detective who hunted down the killer has died, while the victim's girlfriend continues to live a life in hiding, haunted by fear.
A Life in Shadow: The Enduring Fear of a Witness
Danielle Cable was only 17 years old when she witnessed her 21-year-old boyfriend, electrician Stephen Cameron, being stabbed to death by gangster Kenneth Noye in May 1996. The attack followed a road rage incident near Swanley, Kent. Now a married mother, Danielle has spent the intervening years living under an assumed identity in the witness protection programme, able to see her parents only twice a year due to the persistent threat of revenge.
Her profound sacrifice was acknowledged by the late Former Detective Superintendent Nick Biddiss, who passed away last month aged 79. He stated in 2019 that Danielle's own mother's grim prediction had come true: involvement in the case had ruined her life. "She's still in witness protection," he said. "Whether it's real, I don't know but Kenneth Noye is a man who has got his tentacles everywhere. She was very brave in what she did."
The Detective's Relentless Pursuit of Justice
Nick Biddiss, who died just two months after his wife of 56 years, Brenda, led the determined hunt for Noye after he fled to Spain following the murder. In a high-risk move, Biddiss dispatched two senior Kent detectives to track Noye to an isolated Spanish farmhouse, operating outside normal protocol with no backup. Once Noye was located, Biddiss made the unprecedented decision to ask the teenage Danielle Cable to travel to Spain for a covert identification operation.
"Danielle was onside," Biddiss recalled. "She wanted justice and she got on well with Stephen's parents. She was in love with Stephen and wanted to make sure whoever killed him was brought to justice. She was coming on to be 19, but she was very brave and an honourable person." Her courageous testimony later at the Old Bailey was pivotal.
Legacy of a Case That Shocked the Nation
Noye, already infamous for his role in the 1983 £26 million Brink's-Mat bullion heist and for stabbing undercover police officer John Fordham to death in 1985 (for which he was acquitted on grounds of self-defence), was eventually extradited. He was convicted of Stephen Cameron's murder in 2000 and sentenced to a minimum of 16 years, being released in 2019. He now reportedly lives in Kent.
Biddiss's son, Rob, highlighted his father's dedication to victims and his frustration with the glamorisation of criminals. This was particularly directed at the 2023 BBC drama The Gold, which portrayed Noye as charismatic. "Dad felt dramatisations like The Gold really glamourised the criminal world," Rob said. "He always said he’d like people to remember the names of victims rather than the people who’d killed them." Nick Biddiss himself criticised the portrayal, stating, "What is being portrayed in this programme is that he's some latter-day Robin Hood - a jolly fellow. He's a vicious individual."
The case leaves a complex legacy: a detective remembered for his principled pursuit of justice, a killer walking free, and a witness whose life was irrevocably altered by a moment of violence on a motorway slip road almost 30 years ago.
