Copyright

HarperElement

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First published as Town Without Pity by Century,

an imprint of Random House 2002

This revised and updated edition published by HarperElement 2019

FIRST EDITION

© Don Hale 2019

Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Cover photograph supplied by the author

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Source ISBN: 9780008331627

Ebook Edition © June 2019 ISBN: 9780008331634

Version: 2019-05-22

Dedication

Contents

1  Cover

2  Title Page

3  Copyright

4  Dedication

5  Contents

6  Cast of Characters

7  Map of Bakewell Cemetery

8  INTRODUCTION

9  1 ‘STEPHEN WHO?’

10  2 THE DOWNINGS

11  3 WHAT RAY SAW

12  4 THE CONFESSION

13  5 THE WITNESSES

14  6 STEPHEN’S VERSION

15  7 BELIEVING THE BEEBES

16  8 THE RUNNING MAN

17  9 PERSONS OF INTEREST: MR ORANGE, MR OULSNAM AND MR RED

18  10 WHO WAS WENDY SEWELL?

19  11 ANATOMY OF A FALSE CONFESSION

20  12 ON THE TRAIL OF MR ORANGE

21  13 WALKING WITH WITNESSES

22  14 THE BOMBSHELL

23  15 THE SMOKING GUN

24  16 GETTING TO KNOW STEPHEN DOWNING

25  17 FACE TO FACE AT LAST

26  18 JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE PARANOID DOESN’T MEAN THEY’RE NOT AFTER YOU

27  19 WALKING IN ROBERT ERVIN’S SHADOW

28  20 CLANDESTINE MEETINGS

29  21 BATTLING BUREAUCRACY

30  22 THE TEA AND CAKES DEPARTMENT

31  23 THE COVER-UP

32  24 MULTIPLE MURDERS

33  25 THE NATIONAL INTEREST

34  26 THE WAITING GAME

35  27 THE LONGEST DAY

36  28 FACE TO FACE AGAIN

37  29 WELCOME HOME

38  30 FREEDOM

39  Epilogue

40  Enjoyed the Book?

41  About the Publisher

LandmarksCoverFrontmatterStart of ContentBackmatter

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Cast of Characters
THE VICTIM AND HER FAMILY

Wendy Sewell

David Sewell

John Marshall

THE MAIN SUSPECT AND HIS FAMILY

Stephen Downing

Ray Downing

Juanita Downing

Christine Downing

PERSONS OF INTEREST

Mr Orange

Syd Oulsnam

Mr Red

Mr Blue (the running man)

The businessman

PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR AND INFORMANTS

Robert Ervin

Port Vale

Chelsea

Spurs

DERBYSHIRE POLICE

PC Ernie Charlesworth

PC Ball

Detective Younger

Detective Johnson

Detective Rodney Jones

Detective Superintendent Tom Naylor

Chief Constable John Newing

Deputy Chief Constable Don Dovaston

MATLOCK MERCURY STAFF

Sam Fay

Jackie Dunn

Norman Taylor

Marcus Edwards

Matt Barlow

OTHER JOURNALISTS

Nick Pryer (Mail on Sunday)

Frank Curran (Daily Star)

Matthew Parris (The Times)

Rob Hollingsworth (Sheffield Star)

Allan Taylor (Central Television)

OFFICIALS

Patrick McLoughlin MP

CCRC Commissioner Barry Capon

WITNESSES

Charlie Carman

Wilf Walker

Peter Moran

Mr Watts

Mr Dawson

Louisa Hadfield

George Paling

Marie Bright

Jayne Atkins

Margaret Beebe

Ian Beebe

Lucy Beebe

John Osmaston

Rita

Ms Yellow

Cynthia Smithurst

Yvonne Spencer

Crabby

Steven Martin

Map of Bakewell Cemetery

A: Anthony Naylor’s grave on the lower path where Wendy was attacked, and where Stephen found her.

B: Sarah Bradbury’s grave where Wendy had moved to after Stephen returned with Wilf Walker, and where she was seen by the workmen.

C: The consecrated chapel. Jayne Atkins saw Wendy on the path behind here embracing a man.

D: The spot where little Ian Beebe saw Wendy as he cycled up the middle path.

E: The unconsecrated chapel used as the workmen’s store.

F: The Garden of Remembrance.

G: The Kissing Gate

H: The Gatekeeper’s Lodge, home of Wilf Walker.

I: The main cemetery gates.

J: The phone box.

K: The back gate to the cemetery through which Jayne Atkins entered and left.

L: Syd Oulsnam’s van was seen parked here.

M: Bakewell Methodist Junior School.

N: The spot where Louisa Hadfield saw the running man going towards Lady Manners School.

Introduction

It was a cold, drizzly night in March 1995, and I was working late at the Matlock Mercury office, with no one but my dog Jess for company, when the phone rang. It was a young woman on the other end of the line. She said there was a large fire at a nearby farm, which sounded serious and newsworthy to me.

I quickly grabbed my gear, cameras and all, and jumped in my car with Jess, who snuggled in her blanket on the back seat as we travelled through the bleak Derbyshire hills in the direction of the fire.

It was a challenging road at times, snaking its way through a barren landscape and miles upon miles of desperately bleak moorland. The road seemed totally deserted, and I was in an almost dream-like state navigating the deep dips of this roller-coaster track, when suddenly out of nowhere an enormous truck appeared right behind me, with its powerful headlights and a top searchlight burning into my rear-view mirror.

Dazzled by the lights, I slowed to let it pass, but the truck driver also slackened his speed, and remained directly behind me.

As I reached the location of the fire, all was calm and there wasn’t even a whiff of smoke. I realised I had been the victim of a hoax. It was time to turn the car round and head for home. I swung into a lay-by, steering in a wide arc, and almost clipped the lorry as it clattered past.

That’s the last I’ll see of him, I thought, as I changed up into third gear. But then, to my surprise and shock, I saw this monster in my mirror, with its roaring engine, hissing air brakes and screeching tyres, also perform a spectacular U-turn in my wake.

The darkened cab was now illuminated. The driver appeared to be talking into a CB radio. I pressed down on the accelerator but the lorry was still gaining speed on me, and very rapidly. Jess whimpered softly, so I reached back and patted her head, taking my eyes off the road for a split second – and we almost took off on one of the major dips I subsequently misjudged.

It took a second or two to adjust my vision as the headlight beams bounced back off the dark, shiny road surface. There were no other vehicles on the road; it was just me and my pursuer. I turned off onto the narrow road which led back to Cromford and Matlock, and home – but still he followed.

I put my foot down, but I was now sweating with fear, my hands and legs trembling. It was pitch black apart from the dim lights of some distant farmhouse, and I knew I would have to slow down soon.

I decided to cut off the main road to the left, which would take me back down the valley towards the picturesque villages of Winster and Elton, on an even narrower road. If I could reach there, I’d surely be safe.

The lorry was so close it was almost in the back seat with Jess, and again its bright lights blazed into my mirrors.

I jumped out of my skin when its horn, a deep and very loud siren, blared repeatedly into my ears … and then came the impact. A juddering bump in the rear, jolting my car forward.

The horn sounded again and again, and then another sickening bump. I had to think quickly. In a minute or so the junction down to Elton would appear on my left. Suddenly, I had an idea.

As the fork approached I signalled right then, at the very last moment, jerked the wheel and turned hard left. But the lorry driver copied my actions, clipping a signpost and ploughing over the grass verge in the process.

My head was throbbing, my blood pumping, and, as I wiped the sweat from my face, I knew the road would come to another T-junction in less than two miles. I was pushing 55 mph, as fast as I dared – it was too dark and the road too narrow to go any faster.

The horn sounded again, then another bang. As I was pushed away from each shunt, I noticed the driver was back on his CB radio again. It dawned on me that someone else must be involved.

The junction was now fast approaching, less than half a mile away. I could see a signpost in the distance and noticed a large, dark shape in the middle of the road, which seemed to be growing in size rapidly.

What the hell is it? I wondered, peering into the blackness. Five hundred yards and closing, three hundred and fifty yards and closing quickly.

Two hundred and fifty yards – and I was still travelling fast.

Christ, it’s another truck!

A tipper truck was parked sideways across the road, totally blocking the way. There was a shadowy outline of someone standing near the front of the vehicle. He had some kind of large object in his hand. One hundred yards and my heart was racing. Where could I go?

As if in answer to my desperate plea, my headlights picked out a reflector on a small gatepost about fifty yards ahead. Maybe there was an open gateway into a field. It was too late for anything else. I touched the accelerator then immediately hit the brake and yanked the wheel hard left, ramming the car through the open gateway into a rain-sodden field. There was a terrific bang as the lorry hurtled past. Its airbrakes hissed, screeched and locked, but it was too late for it to stop. It skidded on the wet surface and slid hard into the side of the other truck.

The field sloped downwards slightly and away from the gate. It was a sea of wet grass and mud. I gripped the steering wheel with all my might in a desperate attempt to keep control and somehow managed to turn the car round in a large horseshoe to face the gate again. The rear wheels spun wildly, but I kept up the revs, spun back up the field and hastily drove back out of the same gate.

I didn’t bother to look either way as I pulled out and roared back down the road. I was soaked with sweat, and through my rear-view mirror I could see white smoke and steam pouring from one of the lorries. Jess barked in defiance and, as I turned to offer a comforting hand, I noticed the driver-side mirror now hanging by a thread – just as my life had been.

All the way home I kept checking the rear-view mirror, any headlights causing my mind to whirl in a frenzy of paranoia and anxiety. The adrenaline continued to pour through my body.

Someone was definitely trying to kill me. I knew they had tried before, and it seemed certain that they would try again.

Yet I kept asking myself, if Stephen Downing had killed Wendy Sewell, why would anyone want to get rid of me?

CHAPTER 1
‘Stephen Who?’

There was nothing auspicious about that particular Monday, 14 March 1994. Certainly nothing to suggest that it would put in motion events that would help to change so many lives, and make an indelible mark on both British and European law.

In fact, the day started in domestic chaos, as I forgot to set the alarm following a late-night return from Amsterdam. My wife, Kath, had no choice but to dash off for work, while I did the school run, dropping off my youngest boy at Highfields School, and on the way back admired the spectacular panoramic view across Matlock and the Derbyshire Dales.

After a few days of luxury in Amsterdam it felt good to be home, and I was relieved to be heading back to reality at the Matlock Mercury. I was termed a ‘foreigner’ by many of the locals when I first moved to Matlock from Manchester. I was an outsider. But it was home for me now, the latest stop in a career in journalism that had seen me work for the likes of the BBC, the Manchester Evening News, and most recently the Bury Messenger, before the opportunity to head up the Mercury came along.

I parked up at the side of the office, and said hello to our stray tabby cat, who would often perch precariously on the upper window ledge, looking at us with a mischievous grin and probably thanking his lucky stars he didn’t have to work in our building, a former print works that had definitely seen better days.

As I entered via the back door, I could hear the old typewriters clattering away and see my reporters going about their business.

‘Good morning, everyone,’ I said cheerfully, hoping they hadn’t noticed that I was ten minutes late. ‘Anything special happened since I’ve been away?’

Jackie Dunn, one of my young journalists, cheekily asked if my flight had been delayed, before she gave me a brief summary of events from the previous week.

My sports editor Norman Taylor, a retired train driver, said Matlock Town had still not scored – but had won a corner, a comment that earned a glare from Sam Fay, my deputy editor. A war veteran in his late sixties, he worked on a part-time basis, covering match reports and local politics.

I took my jacket off, settled down and began to plough my way through all the paperwork, while I asked Sam for a meeting to discuss stories for the next edition.

The small sliding window in the frosted glass partition, which divided editorial from the advertising department, suddenly slid open with a loud bang.

The receptionist announced, ‘Don, there’s a man wanting to make an appointment with you. He says it’s something about a murder.’

She cupped her hand over the receiver. ‘Do you want to take the call?’ she asked. ‘It’s something to do with his son, Stephen.’

I beckoned to her to put the call through.

When I answered, the man chatted away at ten to the dozen. It was like trying to decipher a verbal machine gun. ‘Stephen who?’ I asked.

‘Stephen Downing,’ came the reply, sounding rather agitated, as if I should know all about him. The man explained that he was his father, Ray, and claimed his son was still in jail after 20-something years for a murder he didn’t commit.

He said the murder had occurred in the cemetery at Bakewell, a pretty, picture-postcard market town in the Peak District, about eight miles away. I let him continue for a while before I interrupted, saying, ‘It’s all right, Mr Downing …’

‘Call me Ray,’ he quickly replied.

‘Okay then, Ray. You don’t have to make an appointment to see me. I’m usually here from dawn till dusk.’ I found it very difficult to take in half of what he’d said to me over the phone. ‘Yes, Ray, 2.30 p.m. today is fine. And bring some paperwork with you if you wish. I’m not sure what I can do but I’ll have a look.’

I looked round to see that some of my team were also listening. I told them, ‘It’s a Mr Downing, who says it’s something to do with an old murder involving his son. I think he said it was in 1973. He’s a local taxi driver, and both he and his wife want to see me today. This afternoon, in fact.’

Sam pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He frowned at me, and half spluttered, ‘Don, I will have to go out for a short while but I’ll speak with you later. We must have a chat about this Stephen Downing.’ With that he disappeared in a trail of smoke.

* * *

At precisely 2.30 p.m. there was a knock on my office door. ‘A Mr and Mrs Downing to see you, Don. They have an appointment?’ said Susan, one of our advertising reps.

‘Yes, of course, show them in, please,’ I replied, and ushered the pair into my private office. Ray Downing was struggling to hold a large pile of documents, which he then dumped firmly on my desk. I had to move them aside slightly so I could see their faces.

Ray was a fairly small man with a bald head and a worried expression. I guessed he was probably in his late fifties or early sixties. His wife, whom he introduced as Juanita, was about the same age. She looked quite frail and had sharp, almost bird-like features. She was very nervous and extremely thin. Both wore their Sunday best.

Ray outlined his reasons for contacting me. He claimed his son Stephen had been jailed in 1974 for the murder of a woman in the town cemetery the previous year. Ray kept saying he was innocent, and that everyone in Bakewell knew he was innocent. He kept stressing that word.

‘What’s more,’ said Ray, ‘I can probably tell you who was responsible. Nearly everyone in Bakewell seems to know who did it.’

I was taken aback by his comments. Ray didn’t mention any name, but I was puzzled by his claim and wondered, If it was all so obvious, why was his lad still in jail?

Ray alleged that Stephen had been framed for the murder as part of a conspiracy because the town needed someone else to blame. He claimed the police forced Stephen to wrongfully confess to an assault on a young, married woman, who later died from her injuries.

Ray claimed the woman, Wendy Sewell, was promiscuous, and had taken several prominent local businessmen as lovers. He suggested a long list of individuals, and said they were all well known in the Bakewell area. He believed the powers that be in the town had conspired to protect the victim’s secret life, and perhaps themselves, from a massive scandal.

He explained that several other characters had been seen in or around the cemetery on the day of the attack, and that potential witnesses had either been ignored by the police or deliberately warned off.

He strongly believed that one particular officer, who ‘had it in for Stephen’, went flat-out to get a quick confession. Ray said that although his son quickly retracted it, the confession still formed the main plank of the prosecution evidence from which he was convicted.

Ray said there had been some previous attempts to obtain an appeal against conviction, the first being in October 1974, a few months after his trial, and the second some 13 years before, in 1981. Both failed. He then admitted to hiring a private investigator, Robert Ervin, a former army investigator, who worked on the case for about ten years but died some time ago.

Juanita let Ray do most of the talking. She looked uncomfortable and agitated, and began fumbling through the paperwork, before extracting some old cuttings that reported the previous attempts to appeal. She explained that the rest of the paperwork included court papers, copies of some old witness statements from years ago and various other official reports she thought I might find of interest.

Ray was anxious to continue, and he confirmed that the reason they wanted to see me that day was because a woman had telephoned them anonymously to say she had sent both me and the editor of the Star some fresh evidence that could help clear their son’s name.

‘The Star?’ I asked. ‘Do you mean the Sheffield Star or the Daily Star?’

‘Don’t know, she just said the Star.’

‘Look, I’ve just returned from a short break,’ I said. ‘I don’t think anything’s arrived here, nobody has mentioned anything, but I’ll go and check.’ I brushed past them and made my way to the main office.

‘Does anyone know anything about a letter concerning Stephen Downing?’ I asked. ‘His parents think some fresh evidence may have been sent here.’ Everyone shook their heads.

Jackie said, ‘Whatever came in that we couldn’t deal with is on your desk. I don’t recall anything about a Stephen Downing, though.’

‘What’s this all about?’ asked Norman.

‘I’m not quite sure at this stage, but their son Stephen has been in jail for murder for over 20 years. They are desperate and need a lifeline. I’ll ask Sam when he comes back,’ I replied.

I returned to my office and told the Downings that nothing had been received so far, but that I had contacts at both newspapers and would get back to them as soon as I could. We made arrangements to meet a day or two later at their home in Bakewell.

I was intrigued by what they had said. They were obviously biased, but it seemed worthy of investigation – particularly if some fresh evidence had come to light.

The Downings seemed a likeable couple, who genuinely believed in their son’s innocence. Ray had spoken of numerous conspiracy theories, while Juanita had maintained a more dignified stance, sitting there patiently listening to her husband’s defiant explanations.

I was apprehensive about getting involved, but my youngest son was now about the same age as Stephen was when he was convicted of murder.

Sam returned with another cigarette in his mouth. The ash was hovering precariously. ‘Did Ray Downing come in?’ he asked.

‘Yes, Sam. So what do you know about the case?’

Sam grabbed my arm and led me back into my office. ‘Ray’s well known around here,’ he explained, closing the door. ‘He drives people crazy with this tale about his son’s innocence. He has spent years trying to solve the crime and clear his lad. Poor sod. I really can’t blame him, though. Stephen was only a kid, and a bit simple too, from memory.’

In his hat and coat, Sam looked like a detective from a 1950s movie. I explained about the family’s current claim of an anonymous caller and some potential fresh evidence. He wasn’t too impressed. He had two or three more drags on his cigarette, then started to talk about the case through a haze.

‘It was all a long time ago, but I was on the story leading up to the trial. As far as I can recall, there was a slight feeling of surprise when he was convicted. He was only 16 or 17, I think?’

‘Seventeen, Sam,’ I confirmed.

‘Yes, whatever. I know other names were bandied about and the murdered woman was well known in the area, if you see what I mean?’

‘No, not really, Sam.’

‘She’d left her husband and I think there was some sort of scandal. You know what Bakewell is like. I think Stephen admitted something, then retracted it.’

‘I’m going to their house on Thursday. They want to show me a few other things of interest.’

Sam stared at me. ‘Be careful, be very careful,’ he said. ‘It’s a minefield. Don’t get sucked into it.’

CHAPTER 2
The Downings

I contacted my friend Frank Curran at the Daily Star and Rob Hollingworth at the Sheffield Star. Neither had seen any letters relating to the Downing case, but said they would call if anything turned up.

My reporters were keen to become involved with something out of the ordinary and willingly helped with my investigations. Jackie spent a lot of time collating information from old newspaper cuttings from the early 1970s, trying to build up a true picture of the Wendy Sewell murder. She also contacted all the official channels for copies of any important paperwork. I tried to track down any relevant forensic or medical reports, and between us we soon built a substantial portfolio about the case.

Over the next few weeks we held several case conferences to discuss updates or developments. Following my initial review, I wrote to the Chief Constable at Ripley, asking for the release of some paperwork and any other relevant information regarding the murder.

It appeared the murder had naturally made quite an impact locally, but not necessarily nationally. And most of the press reports were fairly consistent.

On Friday 14 September 1973, the Derbyshire Times declared:

MURDER BID CHARGE

Critically ill in Chesterfield Royal Hospital with serious head injuries is an attractive 32-year-old housewife, who was found unconscious in a Bakewell cemetery just after lunchtime on Wednesday.

Yesterday morning, Derbyshire police said that a young man had been charged with attempted murder and would appear at a special court in Bakewell later that day. The accused is understood to be 17-year-old Stephen Downing, a gardener from a Bakewell council estate.

The woman, Mrs Wendy Sewell of Middleton-by-Youlgreave, was found just after 1.15 p.m. She was rushed to Chesterfield Royal Hospital but early yesterday morning had still not regained consciousness. Police are waiting at her bedside.

She was discovered lying face downwards between gravestones in an old part of the churchyard, close to dense woodland. The cemetery was sealed off as police began their investigations.

Fifty CID and uniformed officers were drafted into the quiet market town and the area surrounding the cemetery was combed by tracker-dogs. Detective Supt Peter Bayliss announced that a 17-year-old youth had been formally charged with attempted murder.

Mrs Sewell worked for the Forestry Commission. She left the office just after midday and was seen walking along the ‘Butts’ in the direction of the cemetery shortly after 12.30 pm. Neighbours said on Wednesday night that Mrs Sewell often visited her mother at Haddon Road, Bakewell, after finishing work.

A slightly later cutting, dated Friday 21 September, explained:

WOMAN DIES AFTER ATTACK IN CEMETERY

Stephen Downing (17), a gardener, is due to appear in court following an eight-day remand in custody.

The papers for the case have been forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions, but no information was available this week as to whether the charge would be increased to one of murder. Downing made a two-minute appearance before a special court in Bakewell last Thursday and was charged that he did attempt to murder Mrs Wendy Sewell.

On 22 February 1974, following the trial at Nottingham Crown Court, the same paper reported:

YOUTH ON MURDER CHARGE IS FOUND GUILTY

Stephen Downing, aged 17, was found guilty of murdering 32-year-old typist Mrs Wendy Sewell in a cemetery in Bakewell, Derbyshire, by a unanimous verdict.

Downing, who was alleged to have bludgeoned his victim with a pickaxe shaft and sexually assaulted her before leaving the body among the tombstones, was ordered to be detained at the Queen’s pleasure. They took only an hour to reach their unanimous verdict last Friday.

Passing sentence, Mr Justice Nield told Downing, who worked in the cemetery as a gardener, ‘You have been convicted on the clearest evidence of this very serious offence.’

Mr Patrick Bennett QC, prosecuting, had described how Downing had followed Mrs Sewell in the cemetery before carrying out the savage attack with a pickaxe handle. Downing claimed that he had found Mrs Sewell’s half-naked body and then sexually assaulted her.

Mrs Sewell, who lived at Green Farm, Middleton-by-Youlgreave, died in hospital two days after the attack from skull and brain injuries. Downing was alleged to have admitted the assault late at night after spending several hours in the police station. He was alleged to have described how he struck Mrs Sewell with the pick shaft on the back of the head and undressed her.

Police officers denied that Downing had been shaken to keep him awake after spending hours at Bakewell police station. His mother, Mrs Juanita Downing, told the jury that her son had never gone out with girls and only had one good friend.

Downing said that bloodspots on his clothing got there when Mrs Sewell raised herself on the ground and shook her head violently. He had told the jury that he found the victim lying semi-conscious in the graveyard after going home during his lunch hour, but the prosecution said that his lunchtime walk was only an alibi after he had carried out the attack. Downing had pleaded not guilty to the murder.

Other regional papers carried similar copy, stating, ‘A savage assault by a teenager with a pickaxe handle. She sustained repeated blows as many as seven or eight to the head – and had then fallen against tombstones.’

Many papers made a reference to Judge Nield, who kept referring to Downing’s statement, which was ‘signed over and over again’ and formed the main plank of evidence for the prosecution.

To all intents and purposes, it seemed like a fairly straightforward conviction. A confession had been obtained on the day the attack took place, and although Downing retracted it before trial the prosecution case still relied very heavily on this admission.

The trial lasted three days. The jury heard just one day of evidence and took less than an hour to reach their unanimous verdict of guilty. It all seemed so quick, clean and convenient. This alone made me consider it curious and worthy of initial investigation.

* * *

A few days later, I set out on the short but pleasant drive along the A6 to Bakewell. The Downings lived at Stanton View, just a few hundred yards from the cemetery – the scene of the crime. They lived in a small semi-detached house on the council estate. It was the same property that Ray, Juanita, Stephen and his sister Christine had all lived in together until that fateful day in 1973.

Despite the fact that Stephen had remained in custody ever since his arrest, his mother kept his room just as it was. The family had campaigned for his freedom ever since his conviction. Ray never looked well, and at first he probably thought I was just another journalist who would write a brief update and then disappear into oblivion.

Ray told me about his work as a taxi driver and, over a cup of tea, explained how he and Juanita first met in a Blackpool ballroom in 1952, when he was completing his national service in the RAF.

Juanita, who had been watching me like a hawk, told me to call her Nita, and explained how she had been adopted from the age of three and never really knew her parents. Born Juanita Williams, she was brought up near Liverpool. She and Ray later married and moved to Burton Edge in Ray’s home town of Bakewell.

Following national service Ray obtained a job at Cintride, as a first-aid attendant, before he left to drive ambulances and coaches. Stephen was born at their home in March 1956, with their daughter Christine born exactly three years later.

Ray said Stephen had a quiet, reserved nature, just like his mother, and was good with his hands but struggled academically. He confirmed that Stephen had the reading ability of an 11-year-old at the time of the murder, and said he believed himself to be a failure at school, with few friends, and preferred his own company.

Nita, though, explained how Stephen loved animals, and said that on the day of the attack he returned home to change his boots and to feed some baby hedgehogs found abandoned just a few days earlier.

She also said Stephen was a bit lazy and a poor time-keeper – a worrying problem that had cost him several jobs. On the day of the cemetery attack Stephen was employed there as a gardener for Bakewell Urban District Council.

I knew that if I were to have any hope of understanding this case and the Downings’ allegations, I would need to examine the crime scene myself. Ray agreed to give me a tour of the cemetery, and we walked across the road to it. It was hard to imagine how such a gruesome murder could have been committed in broad daylight, and so close to a busy housing estate, with much of the area overlooked by dozens of houses. Ray was somewhat disappointed that I had not read much of his paperwork, and at first seemed quite abrupt. I told him that I needed to keep an open mind.

The cemetery was situated at the top of a steep hill overlooking Bakewell. The main access was via two large iron gates. Just inside was a gatekeeper’s lodge. It was quite a compact area, probably about 450 yards in length, with two main tarmacked pathways running parallel, one adjacent to Catcliff Wood and the other close to a large beech hedge. The woodland area included a dark, secluded section. The main path ran directly towards the old chapel, and a bit further on and to the rear was the unconsecrated chapel, where Stephen worked at the time of the murder.

Ray showed me where Wendy Sewell was attacked. He then indicated where Stephen said he found her, lying on the path next to an old grave. The headstone bore the inscription ‘In the Midst of Life We Are in Death’. It was the grave of Anthony Naylor, who died in 1872.

Immediately behind the grave was a low drystone wall, and a few feet below was Catcliff Wood. I could see how someone could easily escape if they had attacked Wendy, disappearing into thick undergrowth.

As we wandered further along, Ray pointed out another spot across some displaced gravestones, back towards the centre path. ‘Now here is where Wendy moved to,’ he explained.

‘Moved to?’ I asked, as we carefully negotiated our way around a number of ancient and broken graves.

‘Yes. After Stephen found her he went to get help, but when he returned she’d moved,’ he said. Ray then stopped next to the grave of Sarah Bradbury. ‘Wendy was found just here.’

I was surprised. ‘So how did she move, Ray?’ I asked, wondering how a seriously injured woman could drag herself 25 yards or so along the path, and across several gravestones.

‘Well, there’s the mystery,’ said Ray. ‘No one has been able to answer that one. It didn’t come up at trial either, and the police never queried it.’

Ray then showed me Stephen’s former workplace inside the unconsecrated chapel. He explained that this was where the council workers stored their tools, and that it had been used by quite a few men at the time of the murder.

We turned and headed back out towards the main gates, and I tried to put the case into some sort of perspective as I listened to Ray. He kept mentioning the names of several individuals who had supposedly been identified near the cemetery at that time. I realised I would need to read his papers for any of this to make sense.

As we headed part way down the Butts, a very steep walkway heading back into town, Ray showed me the Kissing Gate, an old two-way iron contraption that led back into Catcliff Wood.

It was the reverse route to that taken by the victim as she approached the cemetery during her lunch break. It was also the path taken by a number of key witnesses, who could perhaps have helped confirm Stephen’s alibi and his movements on the day.

As I tried to consider all the probabilities and possibilities offered by Ray, I thought this so-called remote location appeared more like Piccadilly Circus immediately prior to and just after the attack, with people coming and going back to work after lunch. It seemed to be a simple routine, and yet, according to Ray, everyone reported different timings and information within their statements.

We returned to the Downings’ home, where the kettle was already whistling on the stove. Nita had seen us both walking back, and as we walked in she said, ‘I thought you would have been back before now.’

‘There’s a lot to see,’ Ray replied. ‘And Mr Hale wanted to see everything.’

‘It’s Don, Ray. Call me Don. This Mr Hale sounds more like a bailiff.’

Ray laughed. ‘Don’t mention bailiffs. There’s one round here that we don’t care for at all, isn’t that right, Nita?’

She laughed too. It was obviously some in-joke. Nita handed me a hot mug of tea. It was a family home full of personal mementoes and treasured photographs, yet Stephen’s face was always missing, apart from a few childhood snaps. Their only contact with him now was on infrequent visits to a distant prison several hours’ drive away.

This thought of Stephen suddenly reminded Ray of something, and he scurried away into the lounge before returning with a large basket. He said excitedly, ‘This is Stephen’s clothing from the day of the attack,’ and tipped out the contents on to the table.

I was shocked to see Stephen’s old jeans, T-shirt and work boots, together with rings, a watch and a leather wrist strap.

I couldn’t understand why the police had returned these items, and why the family still retained his clothes after all these years. Incredibly, as I looked much closer, I could just about see some very tiny spots of blood on his T-shirt, but only because they were highlighted by a yellow forensic marker.

Ray pointed out a particular dark stain on the left knee of these discoloured and dirty jeans, which he said was congealed blood. No other stains were obvious to the naked eye. ‘Look at all these clothes,’ he said. ‘They are not drenched in blood. And yet our Stephen was said to have battered this poor woman to death.

‘If he had, he would have been covered in blood from head to toe. The only blood he got on his clothes was from kneeling next to her when he found her. What’s more, I know the ambulanceman who took Wendy to hospital that day. He carried her into the ambulance.

‘He said he was covered in blood, as she was bleeding so much. He had to burn all his clothes afterwards, they were completely ruined. They were absolutely soaked in blood. You can talk to him. His name is Clyde Bateman. I used to work with him at Bakewell ambulance station. I was a senior ambulance driver and he was my boss.

‘He was summoned to attend an appeal eight months after the trial but was never called as a witness. He wanted to talk about the bloodstaining. He’s now retired, but every time I see him he maintains that Stephen didn’t have enough bloodstaining on him to have committed the attack.’

Ray was still excited. He was sweating and slightly breathless. He eventually paused as I queried, ‘How come you have Stephen’s clothes?’

‘They told me to take him down a change of clothes to the police station, and then they sent these off for testing. They gave us back the watch and the jewellery on the same night as the attack,’ Ray said.

‘The clothes came back later. It’s obvious there’s not enough blood on them, though.’

It was beginning to get dark and, as I had now spent several hours with the Downings, I decided to make a move, but Ray motioned me to sit back down. ‘I’ve a lot more to show you. I’ve got more files and notes. You’ll need to see them all,’ he pleaded.

I had to take an urgent step back. It had been quite an afternoon. The Downing family had made this a personal crusade for the past 20-odd years, but I didn’t want to be drawn in or build up their hopes before I got my bearings.

I politely declined Ray’s offer. I told the pair I had to get back to work. I wanted to spend some time going through the files so that I could examine their claims in more detail. I decided I would make an early start the next day, and cancelled my weekend engagements.

For a split second I felt complete panic. Ray’s papers were piled high next to my desk, and I wondered, What if the cleaner has arrived early and dumped them, not realising their importance?

When I returned to the office, the pile was thankfully still intact. I phoned Ray to arrange another meeting. He suggested I should go the day after next, as Stephen was due to ring from prison. He thought it would be good to speak to him directly.

By then everyone else had left the office. I had my coat on ready to follow them, my hand on the door handle to leave, when suddenly the phone rang. After such a busy day I was in two minds whether to answer it, but I reluctantly picked up in the end.

‘Good evening, Matlock Mercury. Don Hale. Can I help you?’

There was complete silence.

I asked again, ‘Hello, hello? Matlock Mercury.’ Still silence, although I had the impression someone was listening at the other end. I thought I could hear someone breathing, and a slight background noise.

Then a mature man’s husky voice shouted angrily, ‘Keep your fucking nose out of the Downing case if you know what’s good for you! Do you get my meaning?’

Before I had the chance to answer, he slammed down the phone.

CHAPTER 3
What Ray Saw

I returned to the Downing household a day or two later. I decided not to mention my anonymous caller. I thought he was probably a local crank who had spotted me on the estate and just wanted to rattle my cage. Besides, there was a more important phone call at hand.

Nita put the kettle on and within a few minutes she had a piping-hot cup of tea ready. Stephen was going to phone from prison but would only have a few minutes to chat. The couple said all his calls were monitored and restricted to a few short minutes via a special phone card during breaks from work.

I knew very little about their son, other than what I had read in those dusty old cuttings and from listening to Ray and Nita’s descriptions of him. I asked Nita, ‘Had Stephen been working long as a gardener for the council?’

‘No, no,’ she replied with a knowing smile. ‘He’d only been there for about seven weeks. He liked it, though. They’d shown him how to keep the hedges tidy, prune the trees, mow the lawns, keep the graves tidy, that kind of thing.

‘Although he was left to his own devices, other workmen regularly visited him and Stephen would help them out. To be honest, though, he didn’t seem able to stay in any kind of job for very long.’

As they spoke, I tried to imagine a young, immature Stephen Downing – a boy in many ways – convicted of brutally killing a married woman nearly twice his age at his place of work.

It seemed clear that he was not as bright as many other children of a similar age, and to me it seemed his struggle to cope with life continued into his teens and early working career.

Ray said Stephen loved model-making, needlework and cooking. Nita added that sometimes he would take over the kitchen to make everyone a meal, and he enjoyed baking. It appeared however, that Stephen had little in common with other teenage lads, and to many people he was considered odd and a loner.

As we chatted, I was startled out of my thoughts by the loud ringing of the telephone from the adjoining room. Nita rushed through and picked up the receiver, while Ray and I trailed after her.

She quickly passed the phone to Ray, who explained that I was there with them and wanted a quick chat. He then thrust the receiver into my chest.

Stephen sounded much younger on the phone than I had imagined. He was quite friendly but nervous, as he had never spoken with a journalist before. Initially he was slightly excitable, speaking at thirteen to the dozen, and it seemed he wanted to tell me his life story in one go, probably due to the limited time restrictions for a prison call. He seemed keen to accept my help and was almost emotional as he thanked me for my interest.

I told him I would appreciate as much help as possible from him and asked him to send me his personal account from the day of the attack. His parents seemed elated that after all those years someone had finally agreed to look into the case.

After the call, we sat back down in the kitchen, where Ray agreed to share his own recollections from the day of the attack. He grabbed another cup of tea and began.

‘It was bitter cold that morning, that I do remember. I had woken early – about 5.30 a.m. I was a bus driver in those days for Hulleys of Baslow. I had the early morning route that day. I remember pulling back the curtains and being surprised to see a heavy frost.

‘I had a wash and went down to the kitchen for some breakfast. Nita had come down by then.’ He looked across to his wife for support. She must have heard the story many times before. ‘You asked Stephen if he was going in to work, didn’t you, Nita?’ he said.

‘Yes, there was a sleepy response, if I remember correctly,’ Nita admitted. ‘Stephen just couldn’t get up in the morning. He had been off work on Monday and Tuesday with a heavy cold. I doubted whether he would make it to work that day.’

Ray continued, ‘I knew Nita would wake him early enough, but she couldn’t be behind him all the time. She also had to look after Christine. That day was important, because it was her first day back after the summer term. Christine wanted to be early, so Stephen had to fend for himself.

‘He seemed okay the night before, and said he wanted to go back. I asked Nita before I left if she thought he’d be fit for work. She wasn’t sure, but said she had his sandwiches ready if he decided to go in.’

‘So, did Stephen get off to work on time?’ I asked.

Nita was grinning, ‘He was at the very last minute as usual. I called him at 7.20, and told him that Ray had been gone for ages and Christine was checking her school stuff. Even though we only lived a few minutes from his work, he was often still late.

‘In fact, he was in such a rush that day that he put on the wrong boots. They were probably the first pair he could find in the half-light, but they were his best blue dress boots.

‘He only realised this on his way in to work, and panicked, thinking his dad would shout at him. In any case, he changed them when he came home at lunchtime.’

‘Anyway,’ Ray coughed, resuming his story. ‘By that time I reached the depot. I was pleased to see the coaches weren’t frosted over.

‘I was driving our old faithful bus Nell, which operated on the daily service round the local villages. I checked her over. She was always reliable, and I thought, What a pity Stephen couldn’t be more like her.

‘She started first time, and I drove out of the main yard but took it steady in case there was any ice about.

‘As I approached Middleton-by-Youlgreave, I noticed some people huddled in a small group by the bus stop. One woman was stamping her feet to keep warm, and they were all wrapped against the bitter chill wind.

‘“All aboard the skylark!” I shouted as the door swung open, and a cold breeze came in with the first passenger. I checked my change and adjusted the ticket machine ready for the next stop. The clock on the dashboard was visible to all, and the minute hand clicked to 8.05 a.m.

‘I had arrived on time just before 8 a.m., but couldn’t leave until the scheduled time of 8.10. I closed the door again, and while we waited I took a quick glance to admire the view.

‘The engine shivered against the cold. The clock suddenly clicked, and it was 8.10 a.m. precisely.

‘I asked if everyone was on – not really expecting a reply. I glanced in the rear-view mirror as I set off, and then suddenly this woman appeared directly in front of me. I had to stand back hard on the brakes, and the passengers were all tipped forward in their seats.

‘I opened the door again and let on this young woman I recognised as Wendy Sewell. She had been totally oblivious to any danger and was fiddling for change inside her purse. She had actually brushed against the front radiator of the bus just as I was setting off. Still breathless with shock, I said to her, “You were lucky!”

‘She replied, “Yes, I’d laddered my tights and had to look for another pair. I thought I’d miss the bus!”

‘No, I don’t mean that,’ I said. ‘I nearly knocked you over!’ She seemed totally unconcerned, and then it dawned on me – she hadn’t even realised her lucky escape.

‘I then said, “You’re not usually on this bus.” And she replied, “No, but I’ve some business to attend to in Bakewell.”

‘Wendy sat on the front passenger seat by the door. She looked straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge anyone. I glanced at her again as she sat down. She had long, dark-brown hair, which curled just above her shoulders. She was wearing a beige trouser suit with a black jumper.

‘As she crossed her legs, her left trouser leg ran up slightly and I noticed that she was wearing tights underneath with small white ankle socks and rather dingy-looking white plimsolls.

‘I thought she had probably put on the tights to guard against the cold. She carried a light-brown wicker-type shopping basket over one arm, and put her purse into a small handbag, which she placed under a cloth in her basket. I shook my head slightly and thought, What a pity. A pretty young woman – shame about the shoes!’

I stopped Ray for a moment. ‘You’re sure about the purse, tights and basket?’ I asked. I needed to be sure because I couldn’t find any record of these items in the police scene-of-crime report. There was also no mention of any diary, which again was supposed to have been in her handbag – allegedly together with a black book.

It seemed rather odd that the victim was found without her handbag or any other important personal effects. I recalled that there was no mention either of finding her tights.

Ray thought for a moment and then said, ‘Yes, I am absolutely certain. That very morning, she placed her purse into the basket and then covered it with a cloth.’

‘So, what do you think happened to these things?’ I asked him, adding, ‘They were not found at her office, so are they still in Catcliff Wood?’

‘Why not?’ Ray replied. ‘I don’t think anyone bothered to look, despite it being right next to the cemetery. After they forced a confession out of Stephen the police made little effort to find anything, or to question anyone else.’

He was keen to continue with his story. ‘I exchanged a few more pleasantries with Wendy but we were fast approaching Bakewell town centre. She was more intense as we came into Rutland Square. She seemed to have some things on her mind. As soon as we stopped, she was up and out in one, and ran down the street without saying a word. I shouted, “Cheerio!”, half expecting her to wave back, but she didn’t. I never saw her alive again.’

Ray wiped a tear from his eye – he was still emotional as he recalled these details – but soon regained his composure. He dipped his biscuit into his tea. ‘I had a funny feeling it would be a memorable day. The strange thing is that I could have killed Wendy Sewell myself that morning, quite by accident, of course, and then we wouldn’t have had 20-odd years of this bloody nonsense.’

Nita said she arrived home from work on the bus just after 1 p.m. She had only put the kettle on a few minutes before when she heard Stephen’s key in the door. ‘I shouted to him that it wasn’t locked,’ she said. ‘Stephen said the shop had already closed for lunch, and he asked me if I could get him another bottle of pop and take it across to him later at the cemetery. He had an empty bottle with him to collect the refund, and he put it on the kitchen table with some money.

‘I asked him if he was staying for a cuppa as I was making one for myself. He said no, as he had just come back to change his boots and feed the hedgehogs.

‘I told him I had already fed them, and said I would get him another bottle of pop when the shop opened and take it down to him later. He stayed for maybe another minute or so, but said he had to get back to his work and would see me later – but he too never returned home.’

CHAPTER 4
The Confession

So far, I had only heard the Downing family’s version of events, which, understandably, was all very cosy and supportive. I now had to examine the official papers to get some perspective on this. If Stephen really was innocent, I could only help if I thoroughly understood his best lines of defence.

Jackie had collated a massive bundle of paperwork from the courts and other key sources relating to the case. Among them was the Home Office summary, which included his original, alleged confession taken down by the police.

The police confession was stark and distasteful and gave Jackie second thoughts about becoming involved with the case. I told her to stick with it and wait until we received Stephen’s documents with his version of events.

A copy of his confession was written down by officers on the night of the attack, dated 12 September 1973, and stated:

I don’t know what made me do it. I saw this woman walking in the cemetery. I went into the chapel to get the pickaxe handle that I knew was there. I followed her, but I hadn’t talked to her and she hadn’t talked to me, but I think she knew I was there.

I came right up to her near enough. I hit her twice on the head, on the back of the neck. I just hit her to knock her out. She fell to the ground and she was on her side, and then she was face down. I rolled her over and started to undress her. I pulled her bra off first. I had to pull her jumper up and I just got hold of it until it broke, and then I pulled her pants and her knickers off.

I started to play with her breasts and then her vagina. I put my middle finger up her vagina. I don’t know why I hit her, but it might have been to do with what I have just told you. But I knew I had to knock her out first before I did anything to her.

It was only a couple of minutes. I was playing with her and there was just a bit of blood at the back of her neck. So, I left her, went back to the chapel, got my pop bottle and went to the shop, and then went home to see my mother and asked her to get a bottle of pop for me because the shop was closed. I suppose I did that so that no one would find out I’d hit the woman.

I went back to the cemetery about 15 minutes later and went back to see the woman. She was lying on the ground the same way as I’d left her, but she was covered in blood on her face and on her back. I bent down to see how she was, and she was semi-conscious, just. She put her hands up to her face and just kept wiping her face with her hand. She had been doing that when I first knocked her down.

I went to the telephone kiosk to ring for the police and ambulance so that they would think someone else had done it and I’d just found her. I hadn’t any money, so I went to the Lodge and asked Wilf Walker if he was on the telephone, but he said he wasn’t. So, I told him what I’d supposed to have found. He came to have a look and then he went to ask these other blokes in a white van outside the cemetery if they had seen her, but they said they hadn’t, so one of them went to phone for the police. I just stayed because there was no place to go.

I noticed the immediate inconsistency with what Ray had told me about Wendy Sewell having moved when Stephen returned to the cemetery. There was no mention of this within his confession statement.

In stark contrast to his confession, I then received an interesting report from one of Stephen’s prison officers. It had been sent via a contact of mine at the Home Office. It related to a home visit Stephen had made to Bakewell six months previously, in March 1994 – the first time he had set foot back in the town since his trial almost exactly 20 years before.

Downing had been accompanied by prison officer Clive Tanner, who commented, ‘He coped very well. There were a lot of people there who knew him before and were coming up to him and greeting him. It came across as very strange to me how in a small community, where I assume a murder only takes place possibly once every hundred years, when the offender returns he is warmly welcomed by a great deal of the local people. Maybe there is something in the point he is trying to make about not being guilty.’

A copy of the trial judge’s summary then arrived from Nottingham Crown Court. I had told Jackie to ask for a full transcript, but was informed there wasn’t one, which I found strange. A check with the court clerk confirmed that no full record of the trial existed. As a result, all I could do was work from the judge’s summing up.

The Honourable Mr Justice Nield began his summing up on 15 February 1974. He reminded the jury of their duty, pointing out that Downing, who was soon to have his eighteenth birthday, had a ‘perfectly clean record’.

They were informed that manslaughter did not arise, because ‘it is agreed that this unfortunate woman was murdered’. He explained, ‘The issue is whether the Crown has proved it was this man who committed that murder.’

Turning to Stephen’s confession he continued, ‘One of the main planks of the prosecution case is the statement made by the accused and signed over and over again.’

He stressed that the prosecution had to establish that the statement had been ‘voluntarily made’ and ‘accurately recorded’, and went on to explain, ‘If the jury thought there had been oppression, any improper conduct by the police to induce this young man to make a statement, or to threaten him if he did not that such and such things would happen, then the statement is valueless.’

While there was much to pore over in the judge’s summing up, the most striking contradictions between Stephen’s confession and the prosecution case were found in the medical and scientific evidence presented by the prosecution.

At 2.40 Mrs Sewell reached Chesterfield Royal Hospital. Mr Stillman, the surgeon, found multiple lacerations of the skull, and an X-ray confirmed there were fractures. Doctor Usher, the pathologist, performed a post-mortem examination on 15 September, the day after this woman died, and he found ten lacerations to the skull as if she had been violently assaulted by someone using the pickaxe handle. He took the view there must have been at least seven or eight or more violent blows and, whoever did it, would seem to have been in a frenzied state.

The judge pointed out that several witnesses had described Stephen Downing as ‘calm and cool, certainly not frenzied’ just moments after he was supposed to have carried out the attack. One witness, however, PC Ball, the first policeman to the scene, had not regarded him as cool. He had said, ‘He was very excited. I told him to calm down.’ This contradicted the evidence of other witnesses, who had seen nothing abnormal in Stephen’s demeanour.

The judge turned to a report that the prosecution case relied upon heavily. It was written by Mr Norman Lee, a Home Office forensics expert. Mr Lee’s evidence concerned the bloodstaining on Stephen’s clothing and on the pickaxe handle, the murder weapon. He said:

There were stains on his trousers on the knees where he might have kneeled, and on the front of the trousers mainly on the lower legs. There were also a large number of splashes and heavy smears.

There was some blood on the right leg as high as the thighs. He said these stains would have been visible to the people in the cemetery. In addition, there were small spots of blood on his T-shirt and his gloves. An examination of Stephen’s boots showed a lot of smears and small spots of blood, mainly at the front.

Stephen claimed at trial that, after finding Mrs Sewell, he knelt down and turned her over, whereupon she raised herself up and began to shake her head violently. That was the explanation, he said, for the blood on his clothes.

Mr Lee conceded that the blood on the boots ‘might arise from somebody getting up from his knees and pressing on his toes on the ground’. He also went on to say that ‘the blood-staining on the clothes, some of it, is consistent with someone turning over the body’.

However, the very small spots and splashes found on the clothes, boots and gloves were not consistent with turning someone over. And he did not accept Stephen’s explanation that the small spots of blood flew on to his clothing from her head and long hair as she violently shook her head about.

He said, ‘I cannot imagine how you could get splashings as small as those in the way Downing is suggesting,’ and added, ‘If she had flung herself about, then for such tiny spots a lot of energy must have been applied.’ His preferred explanation was that the spots came from Mrs Sewell being beaten, ‘and the harder you hit, the smaller the spot of blood’.

This was a complicated yet very vital point. I read and reread it to make sure I understood his argument. Norman Lee seemed to be saying that violent force produces a spray of blood, which would appear as tiny, almost microscopic spots, on any surface hit by this spray, such as clothing.

He did not believe Wendy Sewell could have shaken her head so violently as to produce these minute spots found on Stephen’s clothing. He claimed they must have come from the blows of the pickaxe handle.

I could not see why Norman Lee was so sure. When cross-examined, he repeated that she could not have shaken her head so violently as to produce that result.

And yet it was not only Stephen who had described the victim thrashing around in an aggressive manner. The judge pointed out that the senior ambulanceman, Clyde Bateman, who arrived on the scene had also reported that, on the journey to the hospital, ‘she became very restless, moving about a lot, throwing out her right arm all over the place, and his uniform was covered in blood but, according to that witness, she was not shaking her head’. And PC Ball told the court that ‘she resisted violently with her arm’.

Although the ambulanceman had not noticed her moving her head, I believed this might have been due to her worsening condition. Stephen found her just after the attack, whereas she was in the ambulance almost an hour later. She soon fell into a coma due to her head injuries, from which she never recovered.

Norman Lee said of the murder weapon, ‘The stains on the boots and lower legs of Downing’s trousers were similar in size and proportion to the stains on the pickaxe handle.’ He went on to conclude, ‘There was very probably a close relationship between the handle and this man’s trousers and boots, and I do not think this would come from offering succour. The boots and trousers were in close proximity when the deceased was battered.’

But doubt had been cast on Lee’s conclusions even before the trial. I had been rummaging through Ray Downing’s paperwork a few days previously and come across a forensic report written in January 1974. The contents were very dry and technical, and I had not realised its significance immediately. Now, as I retrieved it, there were things I urgently needed to check. The report, by Mr G.E. Moss of Commercial and Forensic Laboratories in Reading, had been written at the request of Stephen’s defence team.

Mr Moss examined the murder weapon and various other exhibits in the presence of Norman Lee and police officers.

He found the pickaxe handle heavily bloodstained at the thick end, the end used to hit the victim, while the handle end was smeared with blood.

He agreed with the pathologist, Mr Usher, that at least seven or eight violent blows had been struck. He pointed out that, therefore, this was inconsistent with Stephen’s confession.

I grabbed the Home Office summary of the case and turned again to the confession to double check. There it was in black and white: ‘I hit her twice on the head, on the back of the neck. I just hit her at the back of the head to knock her out.’ Two blows! The confession, relied on as the main plank of the prosecution case, contradicted the pathologist’s evidence – also used by the prosecution – on this vital detail.

I turned to Moss’s report again. The blood, he continued, ‘on the back of the gloves could only be seen through a microscope and was not visible to the naked eye’. PC Ball and a council workman, Herbert Dawson, maintained Stephen said he was wearing gloves when he turned Wendy over.

Stephen was adamant he never said this, and claimed he told them his gloves remained in his back pocket all along. It was one of many apparent inconsistencies that might have made the jury doubt his account. It seemed to me that if he had been wearing his gloves, they would have been soaked in blood considering the extent of Wendy’s injuries.

Mr Moss went on, ‘The pattern of staining on the front legs of the jeans is consistent with kneeling in blood. This would be consistent with Downing kneeling beside the body some time after the attack.’

Mr Moss was also confirming that the blood was congealed and not fresh when it reached Downing’s jeans. He went on, ‘I assumed the linear markings on the inside right leg were probably caused by rubbing against a bloodied surface, possibly a boot while in the act of getting up from a kneeling position.

‘The smears above knee level would also have been made by rubbing against a bloodied surface. Downing said he had turned the body over. If he did, the smearing might well have occurred at this time.’

Then I saw what I had really been looking for. It was in the matter of how the tiny spots and splashes of blood occurred that Mr Moss and Mr Lee differed most. Moss said, ‘The blood splashing on the clothes could have resulted from head shaking, as Downing got up from a kneeling position.’

He concluded that the bloodstaining overall was consistent with Downing’s version of events, including his assertion that there was a lot of blood about Wendy’s face and on the path. Again, he insisted the forensic evidence was not consistent with the version of events in Downing’s confession.

But there was no reference to Mr Moss’s report or conclusions within the judge’s summing up. I found it incredible that his evidence would not have been put before the jury.

Once again, I regretted the fact that a full trial transcript had not been located. It was so important to know whether Stephen’s defence team used this vital forensic evidence. From the papers available to me it suggested they had not, but I couldn’t be sure. And that was only one question among many that the judge’s summing up would leave me to ponder.

CHAPTER 5
The Witnesses

The scientific evidence had certainly given me plenty to consider, and the witness statements, as presented in the judge’s summing up, only posed more questions.

Mr Justice Nield described how several prosecution witnesses had claimed to have seen Wendy Sewell during the last walk of her life.

This grim story begins thus, does it not? Wendy Sewell, a young married woman, worked for the Forestry Commission at Bakewell. The Commission had an office in Catcliff House in Church Street, and the District Officer was Mr Osmaston.

At about 20 past noon Mr Osmaston was speaking on the telephone, and in came Mrs Sewell and handed him a note to say she was going out for a breath of fresh air.

Now that woman’s movements are followed meticulously, until she reaches the cemetery – you may say, perhaps, it is a tribute to the thoroughness of the investigations.

We learn from Mr Read of the Department of Employment in the same building that he saw this woman leave at about 12.40. It is clear that she made her way along Butts Road. Two joiners, Mr Lomas and Mr Bradwell, who were working in that road and were having lunch at that time, saw her … three, four or five minutes after she left the building … and they exchanged greetings.

At about 12.45 Mrs Hill, in a Land Rover, came up to the cemetery gates where she always turned her vehicle, and saw Mrs Sewell walking into the cemetery, and there was no one else about. At about 12.50 Mr Orange saw Mrs Sewell walking on Butts Road towards the cemetery, and they exchanged greetings.

And about the same time Mr Carman, who was near the telephone kiosk just outside the cemetery gates, said he saw Mrs Sewell through the fence walking along the back path in the cemetery, the path along Burton Edge.

At this point the judge stressed that the timings given by witnesses had to be viewed as approximate. He then turned to the movements of Stephen Downing.

About 1.08 Mr Wilfred Walker, who was the cemetery attendant and lived in the lodge by the main gates, saw the accused who walked out of the main gates with a pop bottle under his arm. He appeared to be perfectly normal – this young man was not hurrying. Mr Walker did not notice anything about his clothing.

The judge pointed out that the jury had heard from Stephen Downing saying that he had greeted Mr Walker and his wife, who were at the door of the lodge. Mr Walker denied any such exchange had taken place. He continued:

At about 1.15 Mr Walker saw the accused again. This time he was coming back to the main gates and there was no pop bottle with him.

Just before that time Mr Fox and Mr Hawksworth, workmen employed by the Urban District Council, had come into the cemetery in order to go to the store.

At 1.20, or thereabouts, the accused came to Mr Walker’s lodge. He seemed very calm. Mr Walker said, ‘He asked if I was on the telephone. I said, “No, what is the matter?” He said there was a woman who had been attacked in the cemetery. I asked where she was. I went with him and he kept pointing down there.’

At this point the judge drew the jury’s attention to a further discrepancy in the accounts given by Wilf Walker and Stephen Downing. According to Mr Walker, as they approached the injured woman, Stephen told him, ‘I don’t want to lose my job. I like it.’ When questioned, Stephen denied saying this.

The judge told the jury, ‘Make up your minds, having seen Mr Walker, whether it is true.’ He continued with his summary:

And so, these two reached the spot where this woman was lying. Mr Walker said the accused told him, ‘There was a pick shaft handle covered with blood, and then I saw a van parked by the store.’ Mr Walker told you, ‘I noticed this unfortunate woman trying to get up. She fell back on the gravestone, and never moved after that.’

Well, after some minutes Mr Walker and the defendant called over the two workmen, Mr Fox and Mr Hawksworth, to come and see what there was to be seen.

You were told by Mr Hawksworth, who arrived at the scene, that they saw this body half-naked, naked up to the thighs, and Mr Hawksworth went to telephone for the police. Now at some time about this point two other people arrived, also employed by the Urban District Council, Mr Dawson and Mr Watts, and you have important evidence from them.

Mr Dawson told you, ‘I went across and saw a person lying on the graves. The person was trying to wipe blood from the eyes with the back of his or her hand.’

Here the judge noted that Herbert Dawson had been unable to say if the victim was a man or a woman. He told how the witness had said he shouted for someone to fetch an ambulance, and that nothing struck him about Stephen’s manner as he stood there with the rest of the group.

The judge then repeated the rest of Dawson’s evidence, in which he had told the court:

‘I [Dawson] said, “What the hell is going on?” I turned to the accused and I said, “Where are you working?” He said, “Just across here.” I said, “Was it here this morning?” meaning the body, and he said, “No!” And then I saw that the woman moved again and was trying to stand up.’

The judge continued:

Mr Dawson went forward to try to save her from falling but was too late. Then the police arrived and the officer, Police Constable Ball, obviously rightly said to those assembled, ‘Don’t anybody touch anything,’ and that the accused said, ‘I did turn her over, but I had my gloves on.’

Mr Watts, one of the Urban District Council plumbers, told you he ran for the ambulance, having seen this body, and then ‘I went back,’ he said, and ‘I saw the defendant.’ He heard the defendant say to Mr Dawson that he touched the body, but he had his gloves on. ‘Then I saw,’ said Mr Watts, ‘blood on the defendant’s knees as if he had been kneeling down, and I saw a pick handle on the path.’ He said when he first saw this woman there was blood on her face and body.

It was here that the judge highlighted a major difference between the prosecution and defence accounts. Stephen Downing, he said, had denied saying he made the remark about his gloves. ‘Make up your minds about that,’ instructed the judge, before turning to the evidence of the next witness.

There came then Mr Fox, another of these workmen. He went to the scene, and saw the body lying there partly clothed. The accused told him he thought someone must have been in the chapel and taken the pick shaft out. The accused added that he had gone home at dinner time, and also that the woman had moved. The accused then said, ‘There looks like being an identification parade.’

The judge pointed out a further ‘sharp conflict’ between the Crown and defence cases. Stephen Downing denied making any remark about an identity parade. He continued:

One turns to consider the weapon, the pick shaft handle.

Mr Hawksworth, the council workman who’d telephoned the police, told you about this. He said, ‘I had been in the cemetery about 11 o’clock that morning, and I saw the accused coming away from the store with a pair of shears which he would want for his work. I went into the store to check some asbestos sheets and found something else we wanted, which was a chimney cowl placed on top of the lectern. I noticed a pick shaft nearby. I picked it up to have a look at it, then I put it back.’

At this point the judge reminded the jury that Fred Hawksworth had identified the pickaxe handle he had seen in the chapel store as ‘Exhibit 1’, the handle shown to him in court, which the Crown claimed was the murder weapon. Hawksworth had agreed, ‘This is it.’ He had then gone on to say, ‘Later on I saw the pick shaft on the pathway.’

After summarising the evidence given by the lodge keeper, the workmen and the ambulanceman, who were all present in the cemetery at some point, the judge told the jury, ‘I think I am right in saying that, within the cemetery at the relevant time, no one else was seen,’ although he reminded them, ‘There are holes in the hedge, and another gate, where anybody could come in or out.’

He also drew their attention to the evidence given by two defence witnesses, both of whom had claimed to see ‘a person, or two persons, coming away from the direction of the cemetery’.

However, the judge placed emphasis on only one of these witnesses, Mrs Louisa Hadfield, whose evidence, he said, ‘was greatly relied on by the defence’. He reminded the jury:

She told you she was walking in Upper Yeld Road with her dog at about 1.15 and saw a man running ever so fast towards her … that means away from the direction in which the cemetery lay. She described his dress. She was very frightened. The dog snarled at him. She was so concerned that she had reported the matter to the police.

The judge then described the evidence of Mr Paling, which had been read out in court.

Mr Paling, upon whom reliance is not so strongly placed, was a long way down on the left of the plan. He was in Upper Yeld Road and saw a chap coming up on the other side. He was dressed respectably and was in a terrific hurry. This is all about 350 yards off the plan. He was asked if he noticed any blood on the man. He did not notice any. You may wonder if that witness really helps you.

He then spoke of the evidence given by Stephen’s next-door neighbour, Peter Moran.

He saw Stephen coming from the direction of the cemetery towards the shop at around 1.15. Mr Moran had left his house and was on his way back to work in Bakewell at this time. Stephen had told the court he saw Mr Moran outside the cemetery gates.

The judge then spoke about the police version of events, including Stephen’s ‘interrogation and confession’, and the case presented by the defence. I also wanted to examine the alleged movements of key people in and around the cemetery that day, and to check the timings given. Some of the accounts completely contradicted each other.

Wendy Sewell’s workplace was just a few minutes from the entrance to Butts Road, which then became the public footpath leading to the Butts. But where was Wendy between 12.20 p.m. – the time she passed Mr Osmaston a note saying she was going out – and 12.40 p.m., when she was actually seen leaving the building?

And could Stephen really have only been away from the cemetery between 1.08 and 1.15 p.m., the times given for his departure and return by the gatekeeper? He seemed to have done a fair amount in seven minutes – walked to the shop, then on to his house, where he stayed chatting to his mother for a brief time, and then back to the cemetery.

In addition to this, one of his neighbours, Peter Moran, claimed to have seen him at 1.15 p.m., walking towards the shop, the same time the gatekeeper said he saw him coming the other way, re-entering the cemetery.

There were many similar things that didn’t make any sense and seemingly hadn’t been challenged at trial by Stephen’s defence. Why were only the police called in a first instance and then a second workman had to call an ambulance? It all sounded dubious. Many of the timings conflicted and were completely inaccurate.

I also noticed the fact that within this trial summary the judge also failed to mention a vitally important fact – that Wendy had moved from where she was first attacked, to another spot across some gravestones, where she was seen by the workmen. This fact was mentioned by Stephen Downing at trial. And it was also mentioned casually in at least one witness statement by a workman, but for some reason it was not challenged by the defence – even though it was part of Downing’s revised statement made a few days after the ‘confession’. I was determined to get to the bottom of all these inconsistencies.

Doing this with the assistance of Derbyshire police seemed unlikely, however, as around this time I received a reply from Derbyshire police HQ saying that all the paperwork and exhibits relating to the case had been burnt, lost or destroyed, including the murder weapon. I was furious. How dare they destroy evidence before the man had served his time.

CHAPTER 6
Stephen’s Version

I was about to visit a couple of potential witnesses when Stephen’s personal account of events arrived. He also included a hand-drawn diagram of the cemetery layout, which roughly matched the one I’d made myself when I’d visited his parents. Stephen explained:

The cemetery always seemed empty even when there were other people milling about – although I felt particularly isolated when I was alone. The creaking of the huge timbers in the roof structure of the unconsecrated chapel gave the place an eerie feeling, as if you were never quite alone.
It was September and, while the day was warm enough to work without a jacket, the chapel had a chillness that cut to the bone. I wasted no time in getting a fire going with the hope I could push back the blanket of cold – at least enough to be able to enjoy my break.
I then collected the tools I needed. I don’t have any recollection of any unusual visitors to the cemetery during the morning before my break, although I do recall one lady who regularly walked her dog in there. More often than not I would see her in the afternoon, but on that day she came in the morning. I never got to know her name but, as was customary, she stopped by me and we chatted briefly.
She asked me where I had been for the past two days, as she had not seen me, and I told her that I’d been off with a cold. She told me to keep warm and I informed her that I had a fire going in the unconsecrated chapel.
I remember the lady quite clearly, as it was the first time I had seen her wearing a salmon-pink wool topcoat. I think I may have commented on how nice it looked and that it went well with her blonde hair. I recall her saying it was a new one, as she normally wore a beige coat. She went on her way and I returned to work.

This particular section from Stephen struck a chord with me. His very accurate recollection and description of a meeting with this woman may indeed have been mentioned to his defence team – although I could find no trace of it. The evidence from this witness could have been used at trial to establish his state of mind less than an hour before the frenzied attack on Wendy Sewell – and at the very same location.

It seems, however, that no effort was ever made to try to trace her, or indeed that she was even considered for questioning. It could be argued that she too was a similar vulnerable female, so why didn’t he attack her?

Her knowledge that Stephen had been absent due to sickness for the previous two days, and the fact the attack happened on that Wednesday, his first day back at work, could again have helped clarify and substantiate other additional claims from key witnesses. Stephen’s testimony continued:

I heard the clock strike noon and I stopped clipping grass and took out the pocket watch I had borrowed from my father.
I gathered my tools and returned to the unconsecrated chapel where I had my lunch and a cup of coffee. I followed this with a cigarette and reluctantly pulled myself away from the fire’s inviting warmth to tinker with an old Allen mower. I took out my father’s pocket watch again and saw that it was about 12.55 p.m.
I then lit another cigarette and went to smoke it standing by the steps to the right of the unconsecrated chapel. I noticed a woman walking up the path towards the junior school. I had never seen her before, so I continued to watch her until she went behind the hedge surrounding the Garden of Remembrance.
There had been some damage caused to some of the graves, nothing too serious, just childish vandalism, so I was asked to look out for any such behaviour. By the time she passed behind the hedge I had finished my cigarette and, realising she would not be the kind of person to do any damage, I went back inside the chapel where I stoked up the fire.
I then put on my jacket and picked up my lemonade bottle with the hope of getting to the shops before they closed for lunch.
By the time I left the unconsecrated chapel it would be about 1.05. The shop I was heading for normally closed at 1 p.m., but had on occasions been known to stay open for a few minutes longer if they had customers in already being served.
As I walked along the main drive I soon noticed that the woman, who I later learnt was Wendy Sewell, was walking along the bottom footpath that runs alongside Catcliff Wood. She was a little way ahead of me and seemed to be in no rush.
She appeared to be looking from side to side at the inscriptions on the headstones. I estimate that it would have taken around two to three minutes to cover the length of the path, with the woman disappearing behind the consecrated chapel moments before I drew level with the building. As I went past she did not continue on her journey and I naturally assumed that she had turned around to retrace her steps. I didn’t turn around to look.
When I came level with the lodge I saw Wilf Walker and his wife at the door. I don’t think his wife acknowledged me, but Wilf and I nodded to each other. I turned left outside the gates and passed Peter Moran crossing the road on his way back to work.
We both said hello to each other without stopping. As I got nearer to the shop I passed Charlie Carman, also on his way back to work. We both greeted each other and again neither of us stopped. Moments later, I realised the shop had already closed so I went home.

I would later come to learn that Stephen had received a good education in prison and took several exams to improve his English and writing skills, so he was a far cry from the boy with a reading age of 11 when he first went to prison. As I studied his personal account, something struck me as very odd. I thought Charlie Carman, a trial witness, could perhaps have helped Stephen establish his alibi, yet he was only called as a prosecution witness due to his sighting of Wendy Sewell. And he only gave written evidence for the prosecution. It was only ever said in court that Stephen saw Moran, not Carman. I found it strange that Carman had not been called or even cross-examined by Stephen’s defence team.

I continued reading.

Upon arrival I went to unlock the door and my mother called to me to say the door wasn’t locked. I went in via the back door where my mother greeted me. She was in the process of making herself a cup of coffee and explained that she had not long arrived home.
I asked if she would buy me a bottle of lemonade when the shop reopened. My mother said she would. I then counted out the money – minus the allowance on the returned bottle. She asked if I would like the bottle of lemonade bringing down to the churchyard and I said something along the lines that it would be all right either way, as I could always take it with me the next day. I then asked her if she had fed my baby hedgehogs, as that was one of the main reasons I had gone back home. She said she had.
A couple more minutes passed and then I said I had better be getting back. My mother offered to make a cup of coffee, but I refused. I never liked to be away for too long in case anyone checked up on me and I had to explain the reason for my absence, as I had perhaps spent about five minutes or so with my mother before leaving and making my way back to the cemetery by the same route.
As I entered the main gates of the cemetery, I noticed that Wilf and his wife had gone into the lodge and closed the door. After going a little further, I took my jacket off and carried it over my shoulder. It wasn’t until I was passing some of the first graves that something caught my eye, so I looked to my left. It took a few seconds to realise that it was someone lying on the bottom path, so I walked over. It was impossible to see the blood from the main drive or any of the external signs of injury.
I threw my jacket down at the victim’s feet and then I knelt at her side. It was not possible to check for any signs of life while she was lying on her front, so I rolled her over towards me. There was quite a lot of blood on the path and her hair was heavily soaked in it. I don’t recall seeing any facial injuries.
I felt for a pulse at the neck but found none. It came as a shock when she raised herself up, and I too reacted by getting to my feet.
It was at this point that I had something sharp pressed into the small of my back and I began to turn to try to see who was behind me.
I was ordered not to turn around and was told if I was to say anything my sister would get the same. The man said something along the lines of ‘have you found it?’, as if to address another person. No reply came and then the next thing I knew was that the person had left me, and I turned at the sound of rustling foliage as they made their escape down into the woodland area.
I gave him and his companion no more attention but picked up my jacket and ran over to the lodge, whereupon I asked Wilf Walker if he was on the phone.
He said he wasn’t and asked me why I should enquire. I informed him that a woman had been attacked. He asked me to show him where and he followed me to the corner of the lodge. I pointed in the direction of where she lay. He said some of my work colleagues had come into the cemetery and we should check first to see if they had already called the emergency services.
As we got to within a few yards of the chapel we were met by other workers carrying out sheets of asbestos and leaning them against the outside of the building ready for loading on to a Land Rover. They had arrived in Watts’s white van.
Wilf asked them if they had seen anything or called the police or an ambulance. They said they hadn’t and one of them went off to make the call. Shortly afterwards Dawson arrived in the Land Rover. As I recall, Dawson made to go over to where she was, and at the same time shouted she was getting up.
I had my back to her and turned to look. She was already on her feet and managed to take a few steps, perhaps two or three, before losing her balance and falling forwards, banging the left side of her forehead on the corner of a headstone.
Dawson was slow to react and had taken only a couple of steps by the time she was falling over. Watts shouted to Dawson he should just leave her alone and not touch anything.
We then stood outside the unconsecrated chapel near to the steps leading to the bottom footpath. It must have been about 10 to 15 minutes before a police officer, PC Ball, arrived on the scene and came over to where we were standing. He asked a few questions as to who had found her, what we were doing there, then asked where she was. We indicated, and he went over to her and had a look and then walked part of the way back before calling me over to where he waited. He asked if I had been the one who found her, and I said I was. He then went on to ask me to say where, and I told him, and even pointed out the place from where we stood.
Finally, he asked if I had touched anything. I said I hadn’t except for turning her over, and I showed him my bloodstained hands. I asked if I could wash the blood off my hands, but he said no, it would be needed for forensics. We then went over to where the rest of the group stood. I seem to recall him asking a couple of questions – if any of them had seen or touched anything. They all answered no.
I think it was Dawson who asked if it was all right for me to help them load the Land Rover and the policeman said it was. The policeman then went back and placed his tunic over the body before going to his car and making a call on the radio.
It would be a good 15 to 20 minutes, at a guess, before anyone else arrived and maybe as much as another 5 to 10 minutes before a Detective Inspector Younger came to ask me the same questions that PC Ball had just asked. I gave him the same answers.
He went back to the others for a brief moment and then came back with someone else in a suit. I was asked if I would be willing to go with them to the station for further questioning, which I agreed to do. I was led over to a blue and white police car where I sat in the back with one of the policemen, while the other got in the front with the driver. As we were about to go through the cemetery gates the ambulance arrived.

I already had many queries and misgivings about the case. This latest account from Stephen threw me into even greater turmoil.

The thing that immediately stood out was his description of someone assaulting him and threatening his sister, as he knelt by the injured woman. If this were true, and this unidentified person had a companion as suggested, then who were these people? And why was no mention of them made at the trial? Could one of them be the man who trial witnesses Louisa Hadfield and George Paling saw running away from the direction of the cemetery? I also wondered why so little effort was made on the part of the police to establish who this running man was.

Of course, this latest account was at serious odds with Stephen’s original confession, which he had retracted after 13 days. However, apart from the omission of someone in the cemetery threatening him, it was same story he had told the police during the first nine hours in the police station, and in subsequent years in prison. I needed to know why Stephen had briefly deviated from this version and admitted in his confession to attacking and sexually assaulting Wendy Sewell.

When I re-read Stephen’s alleged confession statement, there were various bits and pieces that simply did not and could not match the facts. Stephen said he hit Wendy twice on the back of the head to knock her out. The Home Office’s own summary confirmed that Wendy had been hit ‘seven or eight times’ with repeated, savage blows to the head.

I also questioned how, after such an attack, any jury could have imagined Stephen Downing walking out of the cemetery appearing ‘calm’ and ‘perfectly normal’, with no apparent bloodstaining after such a frenzied attack. There was also no mention in his ‘confession’ of Wendy having moved from the path to the graves. In fact, he said, ‘She was lying on the ground the same way I had left her.’

One of the workmen, Hawksworth, said he had picked up the murder weapon earlier in the day. In which case his fingerprints would have been on it as well as those of the murderer. Were any fingerprints or blood samples taken from the murder weapon? Or from the workmen, who were also allowed to carry on working in and around the chapel even though the supposed murderer had gone back there after committing such a violent attack? If the pickaxe handle had come from the council store, any of the workmen’s fingerprints could have appeared on it quite innocently, even Stephen’s.

Another important factor taken from Stephen’s account of the day was that, on his way home from the cemetery at 1.08 pm, he spoke words of greeting to one of the prosecution witnesses, Charlie Carman. He said he saw him between the shop and the cemetery, walking in the direction of town on his way to work. Unfortunately, Carman was now dead, but I found out that at the time he had been employed, like Stephen, as a gardener with the council.

That day, Carman was working in Bath Gardens in the town centre. I checked his evidence. It confirmed he was heading back into town that lunchtime, but made no mention of seeing Stephen Downing.

Carman said he looked over the hedge of the cemetery somewhere near the phone box and saw Wendy walking along a path. At this point on his route he would have already passed Stephen, who was heading to the shop. So, Wendy must have been uninjured after Stephen had left the cemetery. Why then had Carman not been quizzed over this anomaly? Had Stephen ever queried this with the police or his defence team?

I also noticed a major time discrepancy. Carman said he had spotted Wendy at 12.50, but everyone agreed that Stephen did not leave the cemetery until around 1.08. If Stephen saw Carman, and vice versa, then Charlie’s timing was well out.

There were many parts of this puzzle that didn’t make sense. But I also needed some more answers from Stephen. Why did he change his story at the police station? Why admit attacking and, moreover, sexually assaulting Wendy? Why did he wait 13 days before retracting his confession?

I was also interested in knowing more about Nita’s assertion that he changed his boots when he came home at lunchtime.

She claimed it was because he had put on the wrong boots in the morning. And I also needed to clear up the allegation concerning this mystery man in the cemetery who had poked Stephen in the back and threatened him. Why on earth had that allegation not formed part of his defence? I knew I would still need to ask some difficult questions, which many people, the Downings included, might not like.

I wrote to Stephen again and asked him if he could answer some additional queries. In particular, I wanted to hear his version of the interrogation at the police station. Ray told me the confession was forced out of him, but I needed to hear it all directly from Stephen.

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