Episode 2 Conviction: Murder at the Station

BIRD CAWS

'I need help to prove my innocence.

'If you look at the evidence, there's

'no forensics that links me to the case.'

Have you ever talked explicitly about whether he did it?

It's just impossible, really.

It's just not in his nature to do something so awful.

He's had to walk down here, meet her... Yes.

Kill her, put her in the boot. Yeah.

It doesn't seem at all likely to me.

The 9:30 CCTV in which the police said was your car coming out,

coming out onto the main road.

'I can guarantee that that's not my car.'

There's a big difference in my view between a Shogun and a Range Rover.

Could this be the defendant's vehicle?

I really don't know.

WOMAN: 'I know Paula cos she was my best friend.'

So what did she tell you about this other man?

She was definitely worried about something.

Something was wrong and I could feel it.

I'll just tell you one more time, if there is something which is

significantly different to what you've told me,

I would have real difficulty with carrying on with your case.

'I did not murder Paula.'

Where are we in the investigation?

The prosecution say the CCTV evidence put Roger Kearney

near the scene of the crime.

There is still, however, an image of an unidentifiable 4x4 car which

Roger says is his. If true, that could actually support his alibi.

Secondly, a friend of Paula's,

a very good long-standing friend of hers,

is adamant that Paula was having a relationship with somebody

other than Roger Kearney at the same time.

And, importantly, that Paula was really scared of this man.

Now, I don't know how reliable that witness was.

She didn't say anything like this at the time of the trial and I

haven't found anyone else who says that Paula was having another

secret relationship.

So it's not proof, it's just hearsay.

What I've got to go and do now, I think,

is look at some of the other significant evidence in the case.

I want to look at the way Roger behaved in the days after

Paula went missing.

'Mrs Poolton's car was found 11 days after she'd disappeared.'

REPORTER: 'The court heard there was no forensic evidence, no blood,

'no hair, no fingerprints linking Mr Kearney with the murder.

'And nobody saw him murder Mrs Poolton.

'It wasn't long before police discovered

'she'd been having an affair.

'They interviewed Mr Kearney.

'On several occasions in that interview

'he referred to her in the past tense.

'And after she'd disappeared,

'his calls to her mobile phone soon ended.'

What's happening today?

Er, Roger's about to call me.

I want to ask him, particularly about his contact with Paula

when she was missing.

He didn't text her to say, "Where are you? Are you all right?"

You know, she was missing for 11 days and yet

no texts from him asking where she was.

So I want to ask him about that.

And the second thing I want to ask him about is how

he referred to Paula during the police interviews,

because he kept referring to her, um, in the past tense.

And again, this is at the time before her body was actually

found, which suggests he knows she's dead already.

So I want to ask him about that.

TELEPHONE RINGS

Hello, Inside Justice.

'Hello, Louise, it's Roger.'

Hello, Roger. How are you? 'I'm fine, thank you.'

When have we got till? 'Till five past, unfortunately.' Oh, OK.

All right, I shall cut to the chase really quickly, then.

What I wanted to do was ask you about what happened after

Paula went missing on the Friday night.

Can you tell me when you first found out she was missing?

'Well, she didn't turn up for work on Saturday.' Right.

'At the football stadium.

'And then I tried to phone her. Got no response.'

But she was missing now at this stage.

Surely, you were worried about her?

'Not particularly.

'Not at that stage, no.' Why not?

'Because I thought she was... out drinking.'

But for three months, you speak to her on the phone

pretty much every day. 'Yep.'

And then she goes missing for, for five days or so, and

in that time you only send one text and you forward some jokey e-mails.

No phone calls, nothing saying, "Are you OK?"

Can you see why that looks suspicious to people? 'Yeah.

'Well, like I said, I did try to phone her.

'I don't know whether her phone was not working or...

'Well, obviously it wasn't working. But I didn't know whether

'she'd lost her phone or what.'

But then, why not send her another message?

You don't call her or send her a message again,

even after a whole week.

I mean, she wasn't found for 11 days, was she? 'Yeah, I know.'

So you were intimate and close with her,

you say you cared about her and yet even after a week,

you weren't sending her any messages or trying to make

any contact, just saying, "Are you all right?

"Everybody's worried here."

That is odd. That is very strange.

'Do you think so? Hmm. Well, I was annoyed with her...

'..for getting me involved.

'When the police turned up and said she was missing,

'I was angry with her. Because, er...

'Basically having to disclose the fact that we'd

'been having an...an affair.'

But when the police interview you, they talk to you about things

and you keep on giving them past-tense answers. 'Yep.'

And I've been through all that interview and you keep saying

things like you say, "I used to see her down the gym.

"I know she was quite keen on the two of us.

"I think she wanted me to move in. I did like Paula.

"I did like Paula a lot."

You are not saying, "I think she's a great woman, I like her now."

It's all past tense. Why did you do that?

Nobody thought she was dead at that stage,

apart from you in these interviews.

'Well...

'Yeah, I'm not sure... what the questions were.'

I've got the questions. 'Yeah.'

I thought you would say to me,

"I don't know what the hell was put to me."

They say to you, "Tell me about Paula and what you know about her."

"Tell me everything you know."

And directly as a response to that,

you talk about her in the past tense. 'Yeah.

'And I said to them, because they said that to me,

'you know, I said yes, because I was angry.

'As far as I was concerned, the relationship was over.' Right.

'I'm sorry, but I haven't done nowt.' OK.

'One thing I wanted to say to you from what you said from the

'last time we spoke, was the fact that...' Yeah.

'..you are concerned that if it came out

'that I actually killed Paula...

'..sometime in the future, that it would make you look bad.'

It would. 'Yeah, I understand that.

'If you actually feel that I possibly could have done,

'I don't...'

'I wouldn't blame you if you dropped my case at all.

'But I assure you...

'I don't think you'll find any evidence to support the police

'and I promise you that I did not kill Paula.

'That's all I can say.' OK.

You're absolutely... OK, you're not wavering from that at all.

Are you in any way encouraging to me to drop your case?

'No. Only if you feel that way.'

No, I'm asking you what you are saying to me, Roger.

'I would like you to carry on.' You want me to carry on with the case?

Are you in... Are you trying to find a way

to tell me that you were involved in Paula's murder? 'No, no.

'No, but I'm just saying, if you think that...

'Look, I must go cos the officer is getting a bit...'

OK. All right.

OK, but you're also telling me that you did not kill her?

'No, I did not.' OK.

All right, Roger. 'I'm supposed to be banged up at ten past.' OK.

All right.

That was a particularly funny end, difficult end.

Because I thought for one moment that he was going to tell

me that he had... Actually, he was involved in the murder.

And then that... But he then immediately he went on to say,

"No, I did not have anything to do with killing her at all."

I don't know what to make of what he just said.

I-I... I don't know.

I don't know, I don't know.

"If...if it was to come out that I killed Paula."

You know, that's an odd phrase isn't it, for someone to use,

if they're saying they haven't done it?

Why would he use language like that?

Why doesn't he just say, "I didn't do it"?

"I didn't do it, there's never going to be any evidence that I

"killed Paula because it doesn't exist.

"Because I didn't kill her, so therefore there can't be evidence."

That, I'd understand, that, I can relate to.

That, I'd understand, that, I can relate to.

That's, you know, a nice, clear way of talking. But he doesn't, does he?

He sort of dances around things in a way that I find unsettling.

I think there are lots of unanswered questions about the case.

I think that there must be evidence of who killed Paula and,

you know, really good, solid, objective evidence of who

carried out this horrible murder,

and that evidence currently hasn't seen the light of day.

So what are you going to do next?

Now we're going to go and look at

some of the forensic elements of the case because,

for me, there's some aspects to it that just don't add up.

The prosecution say that he got into the car next to her and

stabbed her repeatedly while she was sitting in the driver's seat.

But when I look at the crime-scene photos, there's hardly any

blood on the front seats, which is where they said she was killed.

And I just don't understand how you can be stabbed seven times,

and there'd be no blood, or very little blood left

in the front of the car. So I need to understand that.

And in the boot of the car there's a strange thing.

There's a pool of blood found on a travel rug.

And that doesn't fit with how her body was found.

So I think I need some information on what the postmortem report

can tell us about the murder.

Most of my cases, over the last 40 years, have been for the police.

You have to go into a case with an open mind,

because you have to think of how that person was killed,

what the circumstances were, will they fit with somebody's

account of how they were killed, or the number of injuries,

where they're placed, how deep they are - all that kind of thing

can tell you a great deal about what has happened.

A dead body, it can give up a lot of secrets.

OK, so can we just walk through to begin with, then? OK. Yeah, thanks.

The prosecution case then was she was in the driver's seat,

the attacker was sitting next to her. Does that all fit?

Oh, yes, it does, yeah, yeah.

Are there any other scenarios that could also fit with the evidence?

Well, there are other possibilities.

She has seven stab wounds to the actual torso.

So they thought this one was the fatal wound, is that right?

It has gone into the left lung, cut through one of the major

arteries of the lung, the pulmonary artery.

So it's done a lot of damage.

Yeah.

It was quite wide because it went in at an angle from left to right. OK.

So how would you be...? That would be...

That would be about here, like this, this kind of direction. OK.

And what happened was it went deep into the lung.

Her breathing would have been laboured,

she would may well have been coughing.

There would have been some blood around

which had come from her mouth.

I keep being struck by the fact that

there isn't very much blood in the front at all.

No, there wasn't blood there, you're absolutely right.

Nothing particularly that seems to be saying, it's inside the

front of this car where the attack is actually taking place.

If we're just basing this purely on the actual injuries,

there's nothing to say that those injuries could not have been

done outside the car.

Most probably in a standing position rather than a sitting position.

Most probably in a standing position rather than a sitting position.

Standing outside the car.

Oh, really? Do the wounds lead you to believe it's more likely

the person was standing, the victim was standing?

They would both have had to have been standing, yup.

The prosecution have always said that he got into her car and

stabbed her repeatedly while sitting in the front seat.

But our pathologist said that actually both the attacker

and the victim might have been standing during the murder.

That can only happen outside the car.

It's only a possibility, but if that was the case,

it seems highly unlikely to me that it happened on that particular road.

That's a really busy road.

No-one saw her being attacked there, no-one heard her scream.

I need to go and talk to a blood-pattern analysis expert.

She's been working on lots of tests,

trying to work out whether or not Paula Poolton was definitely

murdered in the car, that's the key question.

The pattern of bloodstains allows us to interpret and to define

how that blood came to be at a crime scene.

The blood can almost give a narrative as to what went on.

If I sustain an injury, for example, to my neck, then blood

may spurt from my body and that will create a very distinctive pattern.

My role is not to determine whether

an individual is guilty or not guilty,

but to be able to present a very sort of balanced view

on the forensic science.

It's just over there, look. So that is the same make and model, then?

It is, yeah. Brilliant. Peugeot 206. Yeah.

OK.

The scientist at the time described that the interior of the car

was examined for blood staining and she says that

"moderate bloodstain was detected

"on the inside surface of the window, handle and door

"of the driver's side.

"Small areas of blood staining were found on the driver's seat,

"the indicator, the steering wheel."

So, it seems to me, looking at the photographs on where blood is,

there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of it,

apart from those bits that you've mentioned. That's right.

Is that surprising? Not to me, really.

The absence of... of heavy blood staining, let's say,

doesn't mean that she wasn't attacked here. OK.

Because she was wearing very heavy clothing,

she had multiple layers of clothing.

So it's entirely possible that she could have sustained those

injuries without enormous bloodshed.

So do you think she was killed in the front of the car?

Not necessarily. None of it is described as being spatter.

Right. So it's indicative really of there being, sort of,

contact blood staining throughout.

"Small areas of blood staining were found on the driver's seat,

"the indicator, the steering wheel,

"the bottom edge of the gear stick, the dashboard on the

"passenger side and the outside lower edge of the glove box."

These are all surfaces that one would naturally touch,

if kind of moving around in the car.

Or driving it. Or driving it. Precisely.

So is the fact that blood was found on the steering wheel

suggesting that somebody wet with blood has driven the car?

It could be.

Is that likely then, do you think, to be the attacker?

It could very well be.

It's certainly something that should be considered and it's

something that we can't entirely exclude.

What about the blood on the travel rug that's in the boot?

Have you got any thoughts on that? I've got a photograph.

So, it will just give us a kind of representation of items

as they were in the boot.

And her position was kind of on her left... Yes, laying foetal.

..in a foetal sort of position in the boot.

There was heavy blood staining found on the travel rug.

And there was blood on her face,

which I've depicted onto this mannequin's head.

And what we see here is her head has been in contact with

something heavily soaked with blood. Right.

And my view is that it fits pretty well with the staining that

was found on the blanket. Right.

If I was to put you in the boot and I sort of scooped you up with

my arms behind your knees and behind your shoulder and put you in,

you'd obviously be quite heavy.

But I almost might sort of roll you in. Yes.

Which would satisfy... That would fit, wouldn't it? ..this position.

How does she then end up completely flipped over

in that foetal position?

All she needs to do is to move or be moved onto her...left side. Right.

But it could potentially be that the car's

moved forward and caused her to rock back.

As the car lurches forward,

it creates that backward motion and she's tipped across.

But, again, I can't say with any certainty either one,

but I'm just trying to express

that all of these things are possibles. Yes.

Well, the prosecution have always said

the murder took place here, immediately after she went missing.

But now that we have two scientists who say that actually things

could be quite different.

The pathologist says that she could have been killed while she

was standing up, outside the car.

The blood-pattern analysis expert said that the blood on the

steering wheel and the gear stick might suggest the car was driven by

the killer after Paula was stabbed.

So, the question is, does all this forensic evidence mean

that she was killed somewhere else?

Did the killer put Paula's body in the boot,

drive to Duncan Road with bloody hands,

then dump the car and walk away?

That's a possibility.

In fact, that's exactly what people thought

when she was first discovered.

REPORTER: Paula Poolton's car was discovered yesterday afternoon by

a routine police patrol car.

Paula Poolton went missing on Friday, October 17.

There have been no other sightings of her or her car until yesterday.

Detectives need to know where Paula's car has been

since Friday the 17th.

They also need to know how long it had been parked in Duncan Road.

The prosecution brought forward witnesses who said that

they saw Paula's car parked here for every day of the 11 days that

Paula was missing.

But then there were other witnesses, they said they were sure

the street was empty on certain days after she went missing.

How long the car is at the train station is really key,

because the entire prosecution case revolves around Paula being

murdered on this road sometime before ten o'clock

on the Friday night when she went missing.

The police agree that after that,

Roger is either at work or he's not in the area.

He can't have done the murder.

Who do you believe?

Well, the prosecution brought forward another piece of

evidence at trial.

And they say it would prove she was killed here and that the car

never moved after the murder.

Right...

So...

How do we know that the murder happened at the station

where her body was found in the boot?

According to the prosecution, she's been murdered in the front

of the car and she's brought round the back of the car.

And somewhere down low, she's dropped and then some blood

came off of her and flicked onto this wheel.

So there's blood, here.

And this place here - one, two - points across that wheel.

And also in the wheel arch, here.

I'll do a really basic diagram.

So this is your wheel arch, right, and here's your car tyre.

So the experts found there was blood here and here and here.

So that's all in a nice straight line.

Being like this - all lining up with that fixed wheel arch -

told the experts that the car had not moved

since the blood got on the tyre.

But if you look at the local news footage

which was filmed at the time,

I think you can see a problem with that.

REPORTER: Paula Poolton's black Peugeot car, her body apparently

discovered in the boot, has been hidden by a white forensic tent.

Now the black Peugeot is on the point of being taken away.

Forensic officers have been conducting one last search of

the immediate area before this road is finally reopened.

The car had been put on the tow truck

and once it was up on that tow truck,

that's when the experts spotted that there was blood on this tyre.

The recovery truck guy said, "The handbrake was on,

"the wheels did not turn, they merely slid along the ground."

I don't think what the recovery truck driver said - about the

wheels only sliding and not moving - is right.

Hello, Louisa! Nice to see you. Yes, and you.

Should I go straight in? Yes.

Thank you very much, cheers.

One...one particular area is all to do with whether or not

Paula was killed at the scene,

whether it all happened there

at the station road, as the police have always said and then

immediately put in the boot and left there for the whole 11 days.

And that made me, that sort of prompted us to look then at what the

evidence was like on the wheel of the car.

Because the blood on the wheel, that totally nails it for everybody.

Right, OK.

That's all good evidence and the all fits really well, providing the car

wheel was in the same position on the road

as it was on the truck.

Now, this is going to require some concentration,

because it is quite hard to see.

So this is the vehicle being recovered.

The wheel moved.

Did I see that or...?

Definitely moving.

It's mov...

Oh, my God!

Well, the wheel that we can see that's moving is the front wheel.

Is that the one that had the blood?

No, the one that had the blood on it is the rear wheel.

If the rear wheel... Didn't the recovery guys say

that none of the wheels moved?

The recovery truck guy says, the wheels - plural -

weren't turning.

The wheels - plural - therefore were dragged along the ground and

they were very certain about that, and they said in their statement

they talk about how there is no movement whatsoever.

They're not being dragged. They're moving.

(Oh, my God.)

It's a big thing.

If the wheels moved... In the process of putting it on the

tow truck... There is no guarantee that it... All lines up.

The murder could have taken place anywhere. Anywhere.

Come on, then.

So this is potentially really important.

But I've only seen the front wheels moving

and they said in court that the handbrake was on.

So I need to go and do some tests.

I've got to go and find out whether the back wheels would move too.

I'm trying to find out, on a Peugeot 206,

what happens when you've got the handbrake on, to the wheels.

What happens to the front wheels? OK. First of all. Do they turn?

The front wheels will turn on that particular model, yes, because

of the handbrake operates the rear wheels and the rear wheels only. OK.

And for the back wheels, if the handbrake is on?

If the handbrake's on and if the handbrake's efficient

and working correctly, then the wheels will lock in

position and can't move with the handbrake being on. OK.

What if the back of the vehicle is lifted to go onto

a recovery vehicle?

If you watch the vehicle, it will start to lift.

So we winch her up, what's going to start to happen,

the vehicle will start to pull up, pull up.

I don't really want to pull it much further than that. Oh, sorry!

Can you do that again?

What I want to know is, does this turn at all?

We'll start pulling it.

We start pulling it. You know?

And then it starts dragging.

Right, and then it moved a tiny bit there, didn't it?

And if I drop the suspension down,

you'll see it will go back to normal.

So I've not actually rotated the wheel,

I'm pulling the suspension up.

But it hasn't gone back exactly.

Because that started off like that, didn't it? It did drag a little bit.

It started off straight and then dragged a little bit. Not much.

Not much. But it did a bit. Yeah. So, I mean, we'll go again.

So it looks to me as if, now we've done that,

as if there was some movement with it, then it comes back...

..pretty close to being in line. Pretty close. Yep.

Well, that's disappointing.

That would have been a massive breakthrough for us on the case.

You know, there's already been a huge police investigation already,

so to try and come up with something entirely new is really hard.

But we've just got to keep on going.

We're going to look for the next piece of evidence

and we're going to see where it takes us.

MESSAGE ALERT

How interesting.

I've had a text.

This... So, I've had an anonymous text from somebody

who says that you can, and I quote it, "attest

"to Kearney's vile, volcanic and uncontrolled temper.

"Kearney is an extremely unpleasant individual under the velvet cloak.

"Try not to be his next female victim - professionally or otherwise!"

I don't know who this is from.

TELEPHONE RINGS

Hello?

Hello, Louise, it's Roger. Hello, Roger.

So, I've been receiving texts... Yes.

..from somebody anonymously, as they can attest "to Kearney's vile,

"volcanic and uncontrolled temper." Yes.

This is a very specific thing this texter is telling me. Anything...?

No. Think hard, cos if I hear it from them and I don't hear it

from you that's going to, that's going to alarm me.

Is there anything you think that they might tell me

about, that would explain why...? I cannot imagine any situation...

the way that's suggested. OK.

Are you sure? Yeah.

Let me tell you the last bit of it.

"Kearney is an extremely unpleasant individual under the velvet cloak.

"Try not to be his next female victim - professionally or otherwise."

ROGER LAUGHS

INDISTINCT

What do you think about that? What do I think about that? Yeah.

I think it's a load of rubbish. The whole lot. It's a load of rubbish.

Somebody obviously doesn't like me and is obviously trying to, um...

put a guy.... Kibosh on the investigation.

Why would they do that?

Cos they don't like me.

The one with Paula wasn't the first affair, was it?

You don't, I don't want you to name names, but you had had

an affair before that, hadn't you? No. No? No.

I'm thinking of you having an affair with somebody

while you were with Kell.

Not... Only a year or so before you started the affair with Paula.

Not affair, I haven't, no, I haven't had an affair.

You said... I was friends with, er...

with, er...

women.

Yeah, no, you told me about that before,

but not sexual relationships with women...

Yeah. But... No I've not, I've not had any sexual relationships with any women.

You told the police you did. Did I? You did. Oh, hang on, yeah.

Er, yes, I did, sorry. You, but... Er, ooh, what was her name?

So, are you now saying you did have sex with someone?

Yes, I did, yes, sorry. Yeah.

Well, how could you not remember that, Roger? Because, er...

I don't know, no idea.

Er, I've forgotten about her.

Just, like, it obviously didn't happen. But...

There wasn't a relationship.

It was like, er, just a couple of times I saw her.

Yeah, I've forgotten all about her. Blimey.

Are there any, any issues with, about your,

about any temper or violence or anything that you are ashamed of

that I'm going to hear from somebody else? No.

Are you sure? Because you're answering me very quickly, just like you did

when you said, "No, I haven't had any other affairs."

I'm not a brilliant man. I know I had two affairs.

You might think badly of me for that,

but I am not a violent person.

You know, if you'd said to me, no, I haven't had any affairs... Well...

..and then I hadn't, just let me finish, if you'd said that to

me, as you just have done, and then I found out from somebody else

you'd had an affair, I would think, take a very dim view of that. Yes.

Tell me now if there's anybody that I'm going to hear something

bad from, and if you think of anything over the next few days

while you're sitting in your cell on your own,

then you need to be straight with me, cos I'm going to hear it,

I'm going to find it, I just need to know it from you, if you want

me not to have a very bad view of it, whatever it is. Er...

no, I don't think you're going to find anything. Well, I know you...

Cos I'm not that sort of person.

The reasons why people have affairs are none of my business,

and, you know, I don't need to hear any justification why you did...

I'm not trying to justify it...

No, but all I'm interested in

is whether or not you're being straight with me.

It's horrible when you push somebody and then the more you,

then you sort of push a little bit and then you've,

they finally start giving you something back, that just...

That really worries me, but I think, to be fair,

I don't know why on earth he would've lied about that to me,

knowing that he's already admitted it to the police.

I mean, come on. He knows I've got the police interviews, so...

It's just an issue for me in terms of,

is he trying to be clever about what he's telling me and what he's not?

And is he trying to dupe me?

REPORTER: Roger Kearney told the court

he had an affair with Mrs Poolton because he thought she wanted

a bit of fun and that he went along with it.

Nigel Pascoe QC told the jury

they may find Roger Kearney's conduct unattractive.

He said, "There's a word sometimes used, 'love rat'."

But, he added, "There's a world of difference between

"a court of morals and a court of law,

"between having an affair with a man's wife and killing."

Are you worried that Roger might be lying to you?

Oh, he could well be, absolutely.

I mean, people have lied in the past and they will again, I'm sure.

If I find out that somebody has lied,

then I would just drop the case immediately, that's the golden rule.

I have said to him right from the very start,

I'll follow the evidence wherever it goes.

If that shows that he's innocent, good.

If it shows that he's completely guilty, then so be it.

You know, I'll follow the evidence.

I'll keep going until I get to the truth.

REPORTER: It's eight months since 40-year-old Paula Poolton was found

stabbed to death in the boot of her own car.

Police divers search for clues to catch a killer,

picking out items as small as cigarette lighters,

hoping that clues lie hidden beneath these quiet waters.

In particular, they're looking for Paula's car keys,

her mobile phone and one of her flip-flops.

It's strange there's some crucial evidence was never,

ever found in this case.

They never found her mobile phone

and they never even found the murder weapon.

But the anonymous texter said that I will find out

that Roger Kearney could've burned evidence.

He says in the text that it's a bonfire night

that Roger Kearney went to and the allegation is that Roger Kearney...

..got rid of evidence in the white- hot braziers at this bonfire night.

I need to

find the green space where the bonfire could've been held

and I need to find Pete The Trees.

I've absolutely, literally, no idea who Pete The Trees is.

Can you tell me... I'm looking for somebody called Pete The Trees.

Come round, I'll find out for you. Will you?

I don't know if you can help me. This is going to sound a bit odd.

I'm trying to find somebody who's called Pete The Trees,

who apparently is somewhere here on Stoneham Lanes?

Outside Stoneham Lakes is a tree, like. He cuts trees.

Possibly to do with a fishing club or a diving club...?

Or you had the Christmas tree man. Right.

That was my mate down the road, so...

OK. Well, I'll go and check it out. We fish up there.

OK. Me and my mate fish up there. OK, all right. All right, thanks.

Thanks a lot. Cheers.

So, what are you looking for now? Church.

Is that it?

Gosh, I'd never have come down here, would I, if I hadn't spoken to him?

It's all making, you know, it all fits.

Oh, here we go.

"Private."

"Warning, covert CCTV in operation."

Private land. Oh, it's all private.

Go... Oh! Hello!

Are you by any chance Pete? Yeah.

Everybody seems to know me as Pete The Tree.

You know, I just don't know why.

I'm doing an investigation about a murder case.

A woman was killed and she was found in the boot of her car. Was it...

..er, near a railway? Exactly.

Swanwick. I remember that, yeah. Yeah. I remember that.

I got an anonymous text who said,

"You should go and speak to Pete The Trees,

"to see how easy it might have been to completely incinerate the missing

"physical evidence in the white-hot braziers

"of his annual fishing club bonfire..."

The knife, you know, that was used in the murder...

Well, I would've found that, wouldn't I, when I clear up?

I'd have found bits and pieces like that, anything metal.

It's strange, because there's such a lot of detail in it.

I can't...I can't see anything going on here,

cos I'm here from when it starts till when the fire goes out.

He was called Roger Kearney.

Roger, Roger. Roger who?

Kearney, or Keern-ey, Kurn-ey.

Let me show you. I just need to do two things.

I need to find a picture of him...

I might know his face. Here he is.

I don't recall seeing him at the barbecue.

Has there ever been anybody acting strangely, suspiciously?

Has anybody ever spoken about somebody, was a bit odd?

No.

All right. Thank you. Goodbye, then...

I'm so pleased to have met you, thank you. All right.

Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

Anonymous text has really wasted my time.

Everything that I've checked out doesn't stand up, doesn't go anywhere at all.

I think it's just vicious gossip from somebody

who is trying to be meddling.

So, that's the end of it.

So, what now?

I really don't know whether Roger is innocent or guilty,

but I do think that after looking again at all of the evidence,

there are really strong reasons for the judicial system to look at

this case again, but getting that to happen is not going to be easy.

The only way you can get back to the Court of Appeal again

is to go through the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the CCRC.

You need to try and convince the CCRC that there's merit in the case.

We've been referred to as a safety net, as the backstop,

as the last opportunity, as it were,

to get a case back to the Court of Appeal.

The CCRC receives about 1,500 cases per year.

We refer approximately 33 cases for a new appeal.

The case has of course been through a jury of 12 people,

who have decided upon guilt,

so inevitably, coming to the commission,

there has got to be new material.

Now, that is a difficult hurdle to cross over.

It is crucial that occurs.

The role of organisations such as charities is hugely important.

However, they've got to present us with logical reasons

for referring the case to the Court of Appeal.

Well, if there is nothing new...

then the Court of Appeal aren't going to change their decision.

Courts don't like overturning convictions.

It's difficult for them to do so.

So you have to find something that's legally new.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for being here, everybody.

So, our advisory panel meeting this afternoon is to look

specifically at the case of Roger Kearney.

It would be really great if the main aim today

is to go through the forensic evidence

and to see what possibilities there are for us now

in reviewing this case.

If you see something on a photograph and you think...

something occurs to you of what could be done,

or might be done, can you just let me know?

Definitely the tapings. I really, really like the tapings.

I would've thought that it would be worth looking at those.

This is the picture, by the way, of the tapings, so...

So, these tapings were taken for the purpose of looking for fibres.

But obviously if you stick tape onto something and take it off,

you don't just pick up fibres with it,

you'll pick up biological material, potentially.

DNA? Yeah.

There have been samples recovered from

the back area of the knees of her trousers,

under the arms of the coat, which are...

You know, if I was going to lift somebody into a car,

I would put my arm behind the knees

and around the shoulders and try, try and get them in there,

so that seems to me a very proper place to look.

So, that DNA from the perpetrator

is actually still happily sitting on those tapings.

Whatever that was on there will be...

On those tapes? Yes. Yes.

The carrier bag.

We wanted to have another look at that.

This is the carrier bag then which was found in the boot

underneath the victim's body.

She'd been shopping at Tesco's, we know, just before she disappeared.

Tracey, can you talk us through...?

You've done some work on this. Talk us through what you've found.

It's wet blood deposited on...

And we think that there's some sort of

detail in there that's from a male.

I think it would be worth finding out who that male was.

Detail in area five, which is the one that you were discussing,

was formed through a combination of wet blood on the hand

and hand into wet blood already on the carrier bag,

so it's a deposition of blood from the hand.

A bloodstained hand, which is then put onto the surface.

That's their opinion, yes.

They were able to say, definitively, not Roger Kearney's.

There's a finger mark on there that's from somebody else.

Does that potentially tell us who the person is?

If it's wet blood on somebody's finger

and that's been placed on the bag,

that's somebody that interacted with the bag

after the victim's been injured.

I don't suppose any Y-chromosome testing has been done,

which would be important, to try and pick up any male contact.

Could that be done in 2008? That's when this...

Was that being done? No, they weren't doing it.

They wouldn't have done it.

They're only just starting to do it now,

so that would certainly be worth looking at.

That is a priority.

Your Tesco carrier bag is number one. Number two... Tapings.

Tapings, all the body tapings. All those body tapings.

So there's a partial fingerprint in blood on the carrier bag.

The carrier bag that was bought by the victim not long before

the last known minutes of her life.

So, we could have a murderer with blood on their hands,

who's touched that bag

and now we have the technology to identify that person.

So, what I want to do now is to find out whether Roger wants that

work done, or if he's going to start coming up with excuses.

It's a final test, really, for him.

So, I need to find out whether he's willing to pay

a lab to do this work.

Then I'll find out whether or not he wants the truth to come out.

If he doesn't, for me, that's the end of it.

TELEPHONE RINGS

Hello? Hello, it's Roger again.

Hello, Roger, thank you very much for calling again.

There is some potentially hopeful news.

There was a fingerprint that went into blood on that carrier bag

that was found... Yeah. ..with Paula's body. Yeah.

So, that's the next step -

make sure that all the possible forensic work can be done, that is done.

You want everything done, don't you, Roger? Yes.

Absolutely. OK.

Yeah, um... I'm quite happy to help pay towards...

what I can. Good.

And what we're always, always doing is just trying to find

the identity of the killer. I'm not looking for evidence to clear you.

You know, that's not the way I go at it.

I go at it looking at, I just want evidence of who has done this.

Yeah, absolutely. That's what I...

So, I'm not asking closed questions.

I'm looking to identify the murderer

and that's what you're prepared to fund, is it? Yes. Good.

OK, Roger, all right. So, I didn't do it, so...

Yes, if I can prove that...

that somebody else done it...

even if they don't get somebody else for it,

but the evidence, proof, you know, shows that I wasn't involved,

I'm quite happy to fund it. OK.

Hello, Ann!

Nice to see you again. Hello. Thank you so much for coming up.

Not at all, it's a pleasure.

Oh, thanks very much for, for coming in today, you know,

coming up to Birmingham for this today. It's a pleasure.

It's brilliant of you to give your time and expertise to the case.

Good luck. Yes. Hope you find your answers. Thank you.

Thanks very much. Bye-bye.

It is a cold day in Birmingham, but it's an exciting day

because we've finally got access to the forensic files from the time.

Is there enough material left to find out categorically

whether or not Roger Kearney is the murderer or not?

So, Ann, have you been able to find out any information about

the one-to-one tapings? They appear to have been destroyed.

Unfortunately.

They've been destroyed.

So those original tapings, the ones that we were sort of

calling the eyewitness, if you like, the person had actually put...

They've been destroyed? They seem to have been destroyed, yes.

Is this, is that categorical? Is that absolutely definite?

As far as I've been able to establish, yes, it is.

And that's something you've learnt today? Yes, it is, yes.

It doesn't look as though we will have access to those.

In a murder case? They've definitely gone. Who owns those?

Well, they're police exhibits.

Maybe the police can give a fuller answer or an explanation.

I mean, don't the police retain them? I'm afraid I can't answer that.

Well... But this is a murder case, though.

Why would exhibits have been destroyed?

Well, I've no idea what the police policy is on exhibits.

Do we know what's happened to the carrier bag? No.

Presumably that would be a police exhibit, too. Yes. Yes.

As would the clothing, everything.

The handbag, erm,

the car tapings...

..they would all be police exhibits.

So we could be in a position where all of those key exhibits...

Are no longer in existence.

..that would hold the answer to who the murderer is, have been destroyed. Yes, yes.

Thanks so much for seeing me.

It's a bit of an emergency. OK. Right.

So, Ann asked the question, "Where are these tapings now?",

hoping to do more work,

and was told they went back to the police

at the end of the investigation and they've since been destroyed.

But it doesn't... It doesn't really make any sense

because you have to retain

items that are taken as part of a murder enquiry.

You can't just think, "Oh, well, we've done that, we don't...

"let's move on." That's certainly not my understanding.

Obviously, I've never worked for that force, but my potentially

naive assumption is that it's the same across the board, that

there's a minimum amount of time we have to keep those things for.

And I worked previously at the MPS, now I'm with the City...

Met? At the Met Police.

That's absolutely...

The 30-year rule is the thing that leapt to my mind with that.

"They'll certainly be kept for 30 years." Yeah.

Everybody I spoke to was really surprised

that this had been destroyed.

If it's happened, then somebody must have made a conscious decision.

Somebody's got to sign a destruction order

or something or other, and it's not common policy.

Certainly for the miscarriage of justice cases that we've looked at

before, there's never been any other case that we've come across

where they say, "We haven't got them because we got rid of them."

'In order for the CCRC to effectively carry out a full review,

'it's clearly very important that material is retained.'

Somebody convicted of murder in the Crown Court,

I would expect the material to be around for at least as long

as that person is in custody.

Now, if material does not exist, there's nothing we can do.

We can't invent material.

We can't come to conclusions not based upon evidence.

If the material has been destroyed, for whatever reason,

whether by mistake, deliberate or not, it doesn't matter.

But if the material simply isn't there,

then it is impossible to carry out an effective review.

'We've had some bad news, in terms of the exhibits.'

OVER PHONE: 'Yes?'

We know that some evidence was sent back to the police.

And we know that they've destroyed some things.

Which is pretty devastating.

HE EXHALES

It is.

There was a guy in Southampton convicted of a murder.

He did 27 years and then managed to prove that he didn't,

he could not have killed this woman.

Can I afford 27 years?

I'll go to my deathbed...

saying the same. I did not...murder Paula.

Um... I will deny ever doing it.

I didn't do it.

That's finger marks.

Why have we got the same four series number for all the tapings

and things from the car?

I don't know.

So, when the carrier bag was examined for fingerprints,

they took certain precautions during that examination,

and they recovered samples.

So, what do we know about where the sample was last known to be?

Well, our last record of that sample is,

it was stored in a freezer within the Forensic Science Service.

And from there, sort of the trail goes cold, really.

We're really interested in it and it's next to ridge detail

from a finger mark in blood.

The sample they took, then, is of the area we're interested in.

Well, it almost certainly is from the area that we're interested in.

So we have got a swab? Correct.

So the only thing left is to find out where it is.

Establish where it is now.

Potentially, we've got something

that, at some point, came from that bag.