What makes someone a psychopath?

A criminologist has revealed the key traits psychopaths display, and why some people might be attracted to them, ahead of the end of crime thriller Happy Valley this weekend.

Birmingham City University professor David Wilson explained that everyone is likely to know someone who could be classified as a psychopath, about one in a hundred people.

He called actor James Norton’s portrayal of murderer Tommy Lee Royce in the BBC drama “incredibly convincing” but, avoiding spoilers, added that he “has gone out of character in terms of psychopathy” in the last two episodes.

Host Phillip Schofield then asked the expert to explain what it means to be a psychopath.

“First of all, psychopathy is a personal disorder, it is not a mental illness,” said the professor.

He explains that the disorder is typically characterized “by three different groups of behaviors or traits,” which can often draw people toward them.

First, he says, they have “risk-taking personalities,” which means they “say things you and I would never say, do things you and I would never do.”

“He wants to be the center of attention by behaving that way and that’s why we were initially so attracted to them.”

Second, he describes them as having ‘shallow affect’, meaning they struggle to feel emotions like most people would.

‘They really don’t have emotions. You may know the word sadness, you may know the word love, but you don’t feel sad, you don’t feel love.

Ultimately, he said, they would be “very simplistic, very grand.” They were saying things that put them in the top 1 percent, the top 100 people in the country.

‘Those three things,’ he explains, ‘are what initially appeal to us, but then the difficulties we have are once we get close to them.

“Once you’re around a psychopath that’s when they use you.”

He said the vast majority, about 9 out of 10, are men and while about 1 percent of the world’s general population are psychopaths, that number jumps to about 20 to 25 percent of the prison population.

Speaking on This Morning on ITV today, Professor David Wilson explained what three traits can be detected in psychopaths.

The former prison warden said the crime is an example of typical psychopathic risk-taking, but more serious crimes like murder are not always the result of psychopathy, and may just be the result of ‘five minutes of craziness’.

He also explained that people can be functional psychopaths, working at the top of the corporate world, for example.

“If you have a superficial effect and you don’t feel like you can make people redundant at Christmas,” he said.

The crime expert also explained why some people, particularly women, may be attracted to people with the personality disorder.

Norton’s character has been labeled the “sexiest psycho of all time” by some online, largely due to the handsome actor who others felt was “miscast” as the evil killer.

But host Holly Willoughby pointed out that Tommy Lee Royce isn’t the only psychopath who has attracted people, particularly women, citing cases of people marrying murderers with psychopathic traits.

The professor said he tells his students both male and female: ‘The psychopath is very good at seducing you.

It would be easy if they had horns on their heads and a long, pointy tail, but that’s not how a psycho operates. A psychopath operates by being seductive.

‘I tell my students, ‘You know that guy at the club who’s too good to be true, when he’s chatting you up’, he’s a psycho!

“The female students get it, but the male students rarely do because they chat less often.

“At first these are really brilliant and exciting characters to be around, it’s only once you’re in their company that you start to say ‘Wait a minute, this person is hollow, this person is shallow, this person doesn’t really love me, this person doesn’t love me.’ is using”, but by then it is too late.’