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The appellant’s evidence
The appellant’s evidence
It is fair to say that the appellant’s evidence was not a success. He chose to deny that he had confessed to the burglaries when Dunne, in August, is recorded as recounting a confession with some confirmatory details. He advanced a positive case that the police had fed information about this, and the murder, to Dunne so that it could be included in the statement. His cross-examination was extremely effective and it is highly likely that the jury thought that he had lied to them. His case, and all he could say by way of admissible evidence, was that he had not committed the murder and he had not confessed it, or anything else, to Dunne. He is a career criminal and a serially dishonest man. In attempting to advance theories in evidence he exposed himself to an effective forensic attack. An aspect of that became clear to us after the hearing of the appeal.
We asked that the prosecution should provide for us a short summary of its case if Dunne’s evidence was excluded. This was designed to help us to test the extent to which Dunne’s evidence was the “sole or decisive” evidence, and also to help with the suggestion that we should order a retrial if we quash this conviction on the basis that Dunne’s evidence should not have been admitted. This summary of the rest of the case includes reference to evidence from witnesses called Hogan and Richards which was not before the jury at the second trial. We have no reason to suppose that this would be any different at any retrial, and their evidence is clearly irrelevant in assessing whether Dunne’s evidence was sole or decisive in the second trial. In addition to the five further points in the summary, we would add the evidence that there is moderate support for the proposition that the footwear marks on the face of the deceased were made by the appellant’s right trainer. The five further points in the summary are these:
The evidence of Adam Plummer. The significance of the conversation between Adam Plummer and the appellant’s mother after a police search of the house in Wootton, considering details of the “Wilden Murder”, is that it is submitted the only opportunity for it to have occurred was on 3 April 1997, which is days before even the police had come to suspect the appellant, which did not happen until 18 April 1997, giving rise to an inference, say the prosecution, that the appellant must have confessed his guilt to his mother, telling her in some detail what he had done. The appellant was cross-examined about this.
The delivery by the appellant of the stolen fishing rod to his sister in Begwary as a gift for her son on one day in late February 1997 and its retrieval for his own son on the next. This is said to be evidence that the appellant did visit his sister’s at about the time of the murder and thus was in the relevant area at the relevant time.
The finding of a battery on the floor of the caravan, hours after the appellant had stolen several such items from the burglary in the early hours of the morning of 28 February 1997 of the Wootton Garage.
The finding on the driveway at the scene of the murder of a metallic paint aerosol can, of a kind routinely possessed by the appellant and which, in combination with a lighter he habitually carried, provided a source of fire ignition.
Evidence of the seat of a fire in the back garden at the appellant’s home in Wootton, where it was submitted he had burned his clothes.