A former panellist on the BBC quiz show Eggheads has appeared in court in connection with an alleged murder in the Netherlands almost 30 years ago.

Dutch police want CJ de Mooi extradited to question him about an alleged incident in Amsterdam in 1988.

The former BBC star was detained by police at Heathrow at 11.30pm on Wednesday and appeared in the dock at Westminster magistrates court in central London on Thursday afternoon.

Wearing a green sweater and green fleece, De Mooi spoke only to confirm his name, address, date of birth and to say he did not consent to being extradited.

Brian Gibbins, prosecuting, told the district judge Vanessa Baraitser that the warrant was issued in May in relation to matters of “manslaughter murder, assault and assault by battery”.

De Mooi, whose real name is Joseph Connagh, asked to be addressed by his stage name, which means “beautiful” in Dutch.

The court heard he was arrested at Heathrow while travelling back to his home in Monmouthshire, Wales, from South Africa where he had been looking for acting work.

Gibbins said the Dutch warrant was issued after the publication of De Mooi’s autobiography last year in which he said “he might have killed a drug addict by punching him and throwing him into a canal” when he lived in Amsterdam in 1988.

Gibbins said De Mooi’s book alleged that his assailant was carrying a knife and that he had “punched him square in the face, disarmed him and threw him into a canal. They are the words he is wanted for for further questioning”.



He said De Mooi had no previous convictions.



De Mooi’s lawyer, Chris Stevens, told the court his client had cooperated with British police earlier this year after the publication of the book and he was shocked to be arrested. “It was a shock to him and his husband when he came to Heathrow to be pulled aside by security,” said Stevens.

Stevens said there was no indication in the warrant as to whether a killing had occurred or if a body had been retrieved from the canal, and there was a “lot of missing information”. “There doesn’t appear to be a named victim in the warrant, date of birth or even an address where this matter took place,” he said.

A spokesperson from the Dutch prosecution service said they were at the early stages of investigating the serious claims made by De Mooi in his book.

“We asked Connagh some questions about his autobiography last year,” he said. “However, he avoided our questioning and that is when we issued the arrest warrant.

“Every year around 12 bodies are discovered in the Amsterdam canal and this can be for different reasons – for example, if they have been pushed or if they are drunk. We do not know yet if one of the bodies found in 1988 refers to the person described by Connagh in his autobiography.”

The spokesperson said the investigation could not progress without his help.

“We don’t know at what precise time the alleged incident took place and this is what they want to find out from De Mooi.”

De Mooi was approached by Scotland Yard for questioning by Dutch police in February this year, the court was told. He replied that he would only agree to be questioned if it was “formally in an interview setting with the appropriate protection” and did not hear about the matter again, Stevens said.

He added: “He has carried on with his life as normal, gone to pursue work and a career.”

Baraitser said: “This is an accusation warrant – the allegation is of course a serious one. I do have regard for the circumstances of the case: these allegations came to light by your own admissions, by your own book and in your own words.”

De Mooi was bailed with a security of £5,000 until a full extradition hearing could be held on 28 November. He was also banned from international travel, has to sleep every night at his home address and keep a charged mobile phone with him at all times. A case management hearing has been scheduled for 24 October.

De Mooi, 46, became a panellist on the BBC2 show, which features five quiz champions competing as a team against different challengers, in 2003 after winning a series of game shows. He was dropped by the BBC earlier this year.

He was born in Rotherham and is estranged from his family. He told the Daily Mirror he grew up in a “violent, racist, homophobic household”.

In his 2015 autobiography, My Journey From the Streets to the Screens, he talked about being homeless in the past and said he survived living rough in the UK and the Netherlands by becoming a sex worker.

Of the Amsterdam incident, he told the Daily Mirror after the book was published: “It was the only outburst of violence I’ve ever done. That’s one of the reasons why I absolutely abhor all violence.”



De Mooi says he was lucky enough to be spotted by talent scouts while homeless in Amsterdam and went on to model in Germany for four years.

Eric Slot, the founder of Murder Atlas – a Dutch database that tracks killings in Amsterdam, told the Limburger, a Dutch regional newspaper, that he believed the victim could have been a man called Norbert Dichtl who drowned in a canal in Amsterdam in 1988.

Slot said that according to the data this man “wasn’t dead before he fell in the water, it was definitely by drowning. There were other parties found in the canal that year, but this is the only victim who received a hit and died in the canal”.

He added: “The police at this time cannot solve Norbert’s death.”