This Morning's true crime expert Emma Kenny is coming to Blackpool with her 'Serial Killer Next Door' show with advice on how to protect yourself from predators

Emma, 47, has presented countless true crime shows for the BBC and Crime & Investigation Channel, and is known for her phone-ins on This Morning.

And now she is coming to Blackpool to share some of her secrets – including advice on how not to be a victim.

She said: “We look at what makes a perfect victim, and how can we ensure that if we are [living next door to a killer] then we are less likely to fall foul. [Killers look for] people that are desirable, available and vulnerable. There’s nothing you can do about your desirability - if you’re a brunette and that’s a killer’s type then they are going to zero in on you. But there’s a lot of things you can do about the other two.”

She recommends common-sense measures like getting a taxi home with a friend, and avoiding places that make you vulnerable.

Emma grew up in Bury, Greater Manchester, in a tight-knit community where nobody locked their doors – something she doesn’t advocate.

“I know now that’s an absolute opportunity that can be avoided. As a community, if you notice something that doesn’t seem right - someone getting into a car who doesn’t look happy, or being pulled along the street, as a bystander you should get in touch with the police or intervene.”

And she wants her audience to rethink their idea of what a predator looks and acts like - often they are charming and pretty ordinary, which makes them so dangerous.

She added: “We have a bias that bad people look and act a certain way but it's not true. Often they are chameleons, they blend in and are adept at relationships so this idea that they are all weird loners is completely incorrect. That means we are at risk of being cajoled because they are charming or spend time with us so they make us feel safe.”

Emma’s live show looks at famous serial killers including Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer. She looks at FBI profiling, what made these monsters tick, and how they got caught.

And it’s done with humour – always at the murderer’s expense.

“You can’t deal with very dark content without also having moments of laughter. I have a very northern, working class, sarcastic sense of humour and I talk about crime in that way. I don’t want people to feel sad, i want them to feel hopeful. The show looks at organised vs disorganised serial killers, what forms them - backgrounds and common traits, and psychopathy. It’s not an academic lecture, there’s an engaging element where I ask questions of the audience.”

The former UCLAN student posts true crime videos to her 136k+ YouTube followers. She does in-depth analysis on horrific mass murders, abductions and abuse cases, but always with empathy and compassion.

They are not heavily sensationalised, not are they academic lectures. For Emma, who has worked in safeguarding, her channel is a chance to make a positive impact.

“TV gets things wrong all the time so I’ve gone over old cases to do a deep dive. These are people's lives and I'd rather make the videos longer so the people who watch it will learn something, but also honour the victims’ legacy.”

She delves into the backgrounds of killers too, exploring their upbringing and the circumstances that drove them to kill. And she often looks at ways a crime could have been prevented.

And she even gets emails from family members of victims to thank her sensitive coverage.

One was from the mum of a toddler who was murdered by her boyfriend.

"I had a lovely email from her saying that she watched the whole video. It’s heartbreaking that she endured it all.”

She was found to be a caring mum who had no idea her son was being abused by the man she’d let into their home. But she’d received a lot of online abuse.

Emma said: “She’d had so much hate. She wasn’t a perfect mum but she lost her child in the most disastrous and despicable way and she has to live with that. With child deaths, people just want to hang someone up, which I understand. She was probably expecting another video blaming her for not knowing he was being abused. This is more for me than just a channel, it's a chance to get things right.”

Emma studied Psychology at UCLAN, and later studied for an Advanced Diploma and MA in Counselling at The University of Manchester.

She became interested in crime after working with young offenders, when she started to see that crimes were never as black and white as they seemed.

“Most had harrowing home lives and had been victims of abuse, we don’t like to think about that. We like to see crimes as good vs bad, but nuance is everything. People don’t have a lot of sympathy for young offenders as they see you as a perpetrator, not as a victim. When you work with them and you realise they’d been beaten and starved, you start to put these pieces together and it paints a very different picture.”

Emma was in charge of the counselling service at Manchester College, where she worked with lots of young people with really difficult problems.

Child protection is the biggest concern for the mother-of-two, which is why she caused controversy by speaking out against lockdowns during the Covid 19 pandemic.

“I was disgusted by what we did to children with the lockdowns. We locked abusers up with their victims. We increased head injuries in children, and locked violent people up behind closed doors, and stress adds to that. The past two years child mortality has gone through the roof.”

Emma runs a clinic for people with mental health issues, which is booked until 2024. She has noticed that more young people are feeling generally overwhelmed by the amount of negativity in the world since the pandemic, which she finds very worrying.

“We had the lockdowns, the Ukraine war, energy crisis, it’s just endless negativity. There’s a load of people in the UK who feel helpless and don't know where to turn. They’re feeling like they are not being listened to. All of this division, poverty and disharmony exacerbates crime because people feel there are no other options.”

She noted that her audience is largely middle aged women bringing up children or caring for elderly parents. They spend their time keeping their family safe from harm, and this is why Emma’s empathetic crime videos resonate with them. She thinks that the appetite for true crime comes from a primal protective instinct that dates back to hunter gatherers.

“They are compassionate people who would do anything to protect our children who really cannot understand why anyone would want to harm someone. Your brain is about making sure you survive, so you make damn sure you pay more attention to the bad stuff because that’s how you can prevent something terrible happening.”

For Emma, any case involving children invokes powerful emotion. One of her ‘triggers’ is when a murder could have been prevented if the authorities had done things right.

Cases where social workers failed to ask questions, or had given advanced warning before a visit, so that abuse went unnoticed.

And don’t speak up over a child’s welfare for fear of offending.

She added: “I’d rather offend you now, and protect you or your children in the long term, than get a pat on the back for being nice. I see it all the time with kids where a child is screaming and crying constantly and they end up getting killed. Why didn’t you call the police, they were scared they’d cause offence. It might be nothing and at worst you’ll annoy them, but at best you could stop a tragedy unfolding.”

The crime commentator is used to media appearances but Serial Killer Next Door is her first live show.

She started her tour in Newcastle, and said she found it ‘terrifying’.

"I’m actually quite socially awkward and I find it very overwhelming. I thought I was just going to die on the stage.”

She is now getting used to the experience, and has more dates being added at venues across the country – including Rugby, St Helens and Mansfield.

But the northern lass is excited to play Blackpool Grand.

"I’ve been to panto there many times, it’s massive. It’s very daunting, but I’m spending the night in Blackpool and have family coming to watch.”

The Serial Killer Next Door is at Blackpool Grand on Monday September 26, 2022.

For tickets and more information visit https://www.blackpoolgrand.co.uk or call the box office on 01253 290 190.