UNKNOTTING THE MURDERS
A bootlace could be the key to finding out who really
committed the notorious Chillenden murders. But only if it’s tested by the
right people, hears Mark Metcalf
16 - 22 MAY BIG ISSUE NORTH
A journalist who helped reverse the murder convictions of
three men is calling for a specialist forensic scientist to be allowed to
examine a key piece of evidence in the Chillenden murders.
Michael Stone was convicted of murdering Lin Russell and her
daughter, Megan, six, and the attempted murder of Josie Russell, aged nine,
near their home in Chillenden, Kent, in July 1996.
Stone has always maintained he is the victim of a
miscarriage of justice and although he is now entitled to apply for parole he
won’t be doing so because, according to his sister Barbara, “that would mean
Mick would be admitting his guilt”.
Stone’s claims have
been boosted by a recent four-page confession by serial killer Levi Bellfield
that he committed the Chillenden murders and that of Judith Gold, a mother of
three, in Hampstead, north London, in 1990. Satish Sekar specialises in
investigating miscarriage of justice cases.
On Valentine’s Day 1988, Lynette White was murdered in
Cardiff. The police searched for one white person in a horrible sexually
motivated crime but ten months later five non-white people were arrested, three
of whom were wrongly convicted in 1990. None of the five had left so much as a
single DNA cell at the scene or on the victim, or had any trace of her blood on
them. In 1992 the convicted men were released after a successful appeal.
“I got to know all of the wrongly accused men and I worked
with White’s natural mother, Peggy Pesticcio, to get the case reopened twice,”
says Sekar. “I did a lot of research and helped pressurise South Wales Police
(SWP) to go out and find the real perpetrator. Nothing proves innocence more
than finding the real killer.”
In 2003 SWP found the
real murderer, Jeffrey Gafoor, at the second time of asking, and he was
convicted. Thanks to Sekar and other campaigners, SWP was forced to try to
explain what went wrong. Eight police officers and two witnesses were tried for
fabricating evidence leading to the wrongful imprisonment of the so-called
Cardiff Three, one of whom, Yusef Abdullahi, died in 2011 aged 49.
Stone was convicted of the Chillenden murders in 1998 based
on an alleged confession while in jail but his conviction was later quashed
after prisoners’ evidence against him was discredited. Sekar was at Stone’s
2001 retrial at Nottingham Crown Court. He has strong opinions about the way
Stone was represented, particularly his legal team’s failure to fully
understand the significance of evidence given by pathologist Dr Michael Heath.
Dr Heath’s testimony referred to a bootlace found at the
site and used to commit the murder of Megan Russell. It did not contain Stone’s
DNA, which was not present at the site, but his lawyers did not explore whether
it contained other samples that would point to the murderer. “If the jury had
heard this, I expect the verdict would have been different,” says Sekar.
For many years this bootlace went missing and when Stone’s
legal team broached this subject the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC)
failed to locate it. The bootlace has now reappeared but its storage conditions
are unclear.
“However, there is
general agreement that the fibres within the individual knots are likely to be
undisturbed,” says Stone’s sister Barbara, who has campaigned relentlessly on
his behalf.
“Our solicitor requested the CCRC to arrange for the knots
to be untied and tested. They have refused. I feel this typifies the CCRC’s
inability to thoroughly investigate potential miscarriages of justice.”
Sekar wants the
bootlace retested by forensic DNA and bloodstain expert Richard Eikelenboom,
who helped resolve the Schiedammer Park murder that shocked the Netherlands in
2000, when 10-year-old Nienke Kleiss was raped and killed and 11 year-old
Maikel Willebrand left for dead after being strangled with a bootlace and
repeatedly stabbed. Willebrand remarkably survived.
Kees Borsboom was initially convicted but Eikelenboom
believed DNA samples on the bootlace and at other areas of the crime scene
showed he was not the murderer. He was proved correct when Haalmeijer was
eventually arrested for the rapes of two women and confessed to the Schiedammer
Park crimes. Sekar, who covered the Dutch case, says: “It has strong parallels
with Stone’s case. He deserves the same courtesy that was belatedly given to
Borsboom. Eikelenboom should be asked to use his expertise to solve the
Chillenden murders.”
Sekar also hopes to see the case of Neil Sayers re-opened.
In 1999, Sayers, aged 19, was convicted of the horrific murder of his friend
Russell Crookes in woods at Hadlow College, near Tonbridge, Kent, largely on
the word of his co[1]accused Graham
Wallis, who pleaded guilty. Kent Police ignored Police and Criminal Evidence
guidelines as Wallis was asked to make a statement in the back of a police car.
Wallis was just 17, had no solicitor’s advice prior to making a statement and
no accompanying adult with him.
Sayers was given a life sentence and released over a decade and
a half later on parole, but without having to admit guilt. He still maintains
his innocence over 20 years later.
Sayers’ case was mangled by a failure to appreciate the
importance of forensic sciences. Crookes’s partially burnt body was not found
until two weeks after his death. Maggots were taken by the now disgraced
forensic pathologist Heath, who was one of the Crown’s experts against Sayers.
The maggots represented the best possibility of establishing
when the fire took place and death occurred – a vital issue. Heath was never
asked what advice he gave to Kent Police about the maggots, so it remains
unclear if he even advised police to consult an experienced forensic
entomologist, and the maggots were left in a fridge by Kent Police for four
years.
“This was outrageous,” says Sekar. “Imagine taking a
bloodstained handkerchief from a murder scene and storing it badly for years so
that the evidence degraded, losing the killer’s DNA. They have allowed the
entomological evidence – the last opportunity to establish when a significant
post-mortem event occurred – to degrade.”
Heath faced a tribunal in 2006 that cost him his reputation
and his place on the Home Office’s register of forensic pathologists. The
disciplinary panel found flaws in his post-mortems of Mary Anne Moore and
Jacqueline Tindsley, two women whose deaths were followed by the wrongful
convictions of their partners. He was also criticised for his inquiry into
Stuart Lubbock’s death at a party at comedian Michael Barrymore’s home. The
case against him was presented by Charles Miskin QC, who had relied on Heath to
prosecute Sayers.
When Sayers’ legal team subsequently applied to have his
case reviewed the CCRC told him that the review of Dr Heath’s cases concerned
those where medical evidence was critical to the conviction and ruled out any
challenge to his evidence in Sayers’ case.
Sekar says: “The CCRC was wrong. Dr Heath also implied that
the partial burning of the body resulted in extensive fire damage. There is
considerable evidence to suggest that this was not so and that Dr Heath’s
conclusions led to errors in the interpretation of fire-related evidence, which
was another issue of vital importance in this case.
“Dr Heath’s role in these aspects of Sayers’ case was never
considered. Sayers’s case should be re-examined.”
Sayers says: “At 18 I had my life taken away. I feel I’ve
never been given any effective avenue to prove my innocence. Justice seems a
long way off, leaving me very down, frustrated and broken. I want the truth to
be found. So on one hand I want publicity to tell the world about how wrong
everything is. On the other I want to keep a low profile so as not to affect my
work and to be able to live some kind of an ordinary life.”
Returning to the Chillenden murders, Barbara Stone believes
advances in testing techniques could help identify the real culprit and Sekar
agrees. Bellfield won’t give his DNA for testing but one of his children gave a
sample that was tested leading to a partial match for the TV documentary The
Chillenden Murders.
“Bellfield’s
confession helps but does not prove he’s the killer; he could be lying. This
would enable you to check it. If you had a full DNA profile from the bootlace,
does it match Bellfield’s?” says Sekar.
