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Authors: Paul Britton
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medicine, science and the law, but until 1986 it had mostly been used in paternity and immigration disputes. That changed on 21 November when the kitchen porter from Carlton Hayes became the first alleged killer to be set free as a result of genetic fingerprinting.
For Leicestershire CID, the result was a public relations disaster. The killer of two schoolgirls was still at large and an innocent teenager had spent more than three months in jail. David Baker faced a grilling at the news conference afterwards. The arrest had not been ‘a blunder’, he said, the youth had been charged after tape-recorded questioning in the presence of a lawyer. ‘He is not responsible for certain aspects of that murder.’
‘Has he been totally eliminated?’ a journalist asked.
‘No-one has been totally eliminated.’
Lynda Mann had been killed almost within sight of my office and I remember contemplating who might have done such a thing. Three years later, with a second girl murdered, David Baker gave me the opportunity to ask the question in earnest. His telephone call was brief and short on detail. He didn’t trust hospital switchboards and wanted to meet.
Leicestershire had a new police headquarters, purpose-built on a large campus outside the city and only a few miles from Narborough. The entrance foyer looked like a reception for a motorway hotel and after following the jinking corridors I found Baker’s office which was larger than his old one but rather sparse. The souvenirs from past operations either hadn’t made the journey or hadn’t been unpacked.
He introduced me to Detective Superintendent Tony Painter, a tall, fit man with a Romanesque face, aviator glasses and a local accent. Close to Baker’s age and experience, the two of them looked as if they’d probably risen through the ranks together. Baker was the quieter of the two but no less assertive.
‘We’ve got problems, Paul,’ he said, nursing his chin in his hands. ‘We were convinced that we had caught a murderer. We had a confession; we had witnesses who put him at the scene; he knew details about Dawn’s death that were never made public. We charged him and then his father reads a bloody magazine story about genetic testing and starts demanding that we give the boy one.’ He paused and looked up. ‘I suppose you’ve met Dr Alec Jeffreys?’
I shook my head.
He continued, ‘Well… anyway … he does a test that we’ve never heard of and comes back and says, “You’ve got the wrong guy.” You can’t challenge it. How do you challenge brand-new science? Nobody else in the bloody world knows anything about it.’
There was a short silence as the question seemed to bounce around the room.
Baker said, ‘I want to know what we did wrong.’
‘What exactly do you want me to do?’
‘As far as I’m concerned, the investigation was faultless. But I’d like you to go over the interviews with the kitchen porter. I want to know if we in any way conveyed to him information that he then gave us. Were the interviews oppressive? Did we pressurize him into making confessions and admissions? How did he know the things he knew?’
Painter explained that there were about fourteen tapes of interviews conducted over several days at Wigston Police Station. A lawyer had been present for most of the sessions.
‘But that isn’t the first priority …’ interrupted Baker. ‘We have a lot of frightened people out there … parents who don’t know whether it’s safe for their kids to walk home from school…’
Painter said, ‘One minute we got the guy and the next we’ve got Jack shit.’
Baker added, ‘Bottom line, we have a double-murderer still out there and I want you to help us catch him.’
Better prepared this time, I knew exactly what I needed. ‘It means going right back to the beginning and studying the entire investigation.’
Baker replied, ‘Fine, whatever you want. We’re not hiding anything.’
Tony Painter had headed the
For Leicestershire CID, the result was a public relations disaster. The killer of two schoolgirls was still at large and an innocent teenager had spent more than three months in jail. David Baker faced a grilling at the news conference afterwards. The arrest had not been ‘a blunder’, he said, the youth had been charged after tape-recorded questioning in the presence of a lawyer. ‘He is not responsible for certain aspects of that murder.’
‘Has he been totally eliminated?’ a journalist asked.
‘No-one has been totally eliminated.’
Lynda Mann had been killed almost within sight of my office and I remember contemplating who might have done such a thing. Three years later, with a second girl murdered, David Baker gave me the opportunity to ask the question in earnest. His telephone call was brief and short on detail. He didn’t trust hospital switchboards and wanted to meet.
Leicestershire had a new police headquarters, purpose-built on a large campus outside the city and only a few miles from Narborough. The entrance foyer looked like a reception for a motorway hotel and after following the jinking corridors I found Baker’s office which was larger than his old one but rather sparse. The souvenirs from past operations either hadn’t made the journey or hadn’t been unpacked.
He introduced me to Detective Superintendent Tony Painter, a tall, fit man with a Romanesque face, aviator glasses and a local accent. Close to Baker’s age and experience, the two of them looked as if they’d probably risen through the ranks together. Baker was the quieter of the two but no less assertive.
‘We’ve got problems, Paul,’ he said, nursing his chin in his hands. ‘We were convinced that we had caught a murderer. We had a confession; we had witnesses who put him at the scene; he knew details about Dawn’s death that were never made public. We charged him and then his father reads a bloody magazine story about genetic testing and starts demanding that we give the boy one.’ He paused and looked up. ‘I suppose you’ve met Dr Alec Jeffreys?’
I shook my head.
He continued, ‘Well… anyway … he does a test that we’ve never heard of and comes back and says, “You’ve got the wrong guy.” You can’t challenge it. How do you challenge brand-new science? Nobody else in the bloody world knows anything about it.’
There was a short silence as the question seemed to bounce around the room.
Baker said, ‘I want to know what we did wrong.’
‘What exactly do you want me to do?’
‘As far as I’m concerned, the investigation was faultless. But I’d like you to go over the interviews with the kitchen porter. I want to know if we in any way conveyed to him information that he then gave us. Were the interviews oppressive? Did we pressurize him into making confessions and admissions? How did he know the things he knew?’
Painter explained that there were about fourteen tapes of interviews conducted over several days at Wigston Police Station. A lawyer had been present for most of the sessions.
‘But that isn’t the first priority …’ interrupted Baker. ‘We have a lot of frightened people out there … parents who don’t know whether it’s safe for their kids to walk home from school…’
Painter said, ‘One minute we got the guy and the next we’ve got Jack shit.’
Baker added, ‘Bottom line, we have a double-murderer still out there and I want you to help us catch him.’
Better prepared this time, I knew exactly what I needed. ‘It means going right back to the beginning and studying the entire investigation.’
Baker replied, ‘Fine, whatever you want. We’re not hiding anything.’
Tony Painter had headed the
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