GUILTY UK - Marc Williams, 18, did not arrive home to Uckfield, E. Sussex, found deceased, 29 May 2021

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The location at Heron's Ghyll where police found Marc's body and where the forensic effort has been focused is in a large area of quite densely planted woodland. It's a good hike from MW's last known location (at Maresfield recreation ground) but only half a mile from LA's house. It's next to a very fast, winding stretch of the A26 that is known locally as an accident blackspot. The Sussex Police press release (linked in my previous post) was carefully worded to make it clear, imo, that it was police who found his body, not someone random. All of this makes me think they were given relatively clear instructions about where they would find him, and therefore I agree this is likely to have been an accident, prank or some act of mutual self-endangerment that went wrong, and that LA has cooperated since his arrest.

JMO (based in part on local knowledge)
 
JuicyLucy said:
The location at Heron's Ghyll where police found Marc's body and where the forensic effort has been focused is in a large area of quite densely planted woodland. It's a good hike from MW's last known location (at Maresfield recreation ground) but only half a mile from LA's house. It's next to a very fast, winding stretch of the A26 that is known locally as an accident blackspot. The Sussex Police press release (linked in my previous post) was carefully worded to make it clear, imo, that it was police who found his body, not someone random. All of this makes me think they were given relatively clear instructions about where they would find him, and therefore I agree this is likely to have been an accident, prank or some act of mutual self-endangerment that went wrong, and that LA has cooperated since his arrest.

JMO (based in part on local knowledge)
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They've not taken long to charge him with murder though which I think makes it unlikely there is evidence to collaborate this was an accident. The fact they've not even waited for the PM is quite damming.
 
infinit said:
They've not taken long to charge him with murder though which I think makes it unlikely there is evidence to collaborate this was an accident. The fact they've not even waited for the PM is quite damming.
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They charged him almost exactly 36 hours after arresting him, which is as long as they had without applying to a magistrate for an extension. If, for example, he had already confessed to something, they would not have had any grounds for that extension and only had the options to charge or release. I am wondering if whatever happened will end up looking more like manslaughter than murder once more is known. But I'm only speculating of course - trying to make sense of the situation in the context of the original presumption that they were friends and had gone missing together.

JMO
 
This is a short clip of the stretch of road through Heron's Ghyll, near Uckfield, where Marc's body was recovered, just to give you a sense of the (vast) scale of the crime scene (a good 250m long - unsure how deep) that's been cordoned off for examination over the last 48 hours. (It's shot from north to south on the A26 and ends just after the junction with Oldlands Hill, which has been closed off with police vehicles.)
 

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The Crown Court
at Lewes Combined Court

Daily Courtroom List for Friday 04 June 2021



Court 3 - sitting at 10:00 am


THE RECORDER OF BRIGHTON AND HOVE, HER HONOUR JUDGE LAING QC




Plea and Trial Preparation
U20210054 R v ASHDOWN URN: 47EE1677921
 
JuicyLucy said:
They charged him almost exactly 36 hours after arresting him, which is as long as they had without applying to a magistrate for an extension. If, for example, he had already confessed to something, they would not have had any grounds for that extension and only had the options to charge or release. I am wondering if whatever happened will end up looking more like manslaughter than murder once more is known. But I'm only speculating of course - trying to make sense of the situation in the context of the original presumption that they were friends and had gone missing together.

JMO
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Yeah I agree, I just wonder if they'd have charged him with preventing lawful burial or something else to keep him in custody while they awaited further investigations etc if the CPS felt there wasn't enough on a murder charge yet.
 
Perhaps this answers some questions. (And perhaps poses some new ones.)

Marc Williams: Murder accused Lewis Ashdown in court:

A man has appeared in court charged with murdering an 18-year-old who disappeared after calling his family to say he was on his way home.

Lewis Ashdown, 19, faced Lewes Crown Court accused of killing Marc Williams.

Mr Williams, from Uckfield, East Sussex, went to the Maresfield area on Saturday but went missing en route home.

His body was found in woodland in the Heron's Ghyll area on Tuesday.

Mr Ashdown, of Normansland, Fairwarp, Uckfield, appeared via video-link and spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth.

Judge Christine Laing QC approved a request by Ashdown's legal team for a psychiatric report to be prepared on him.

The judge adjourned the case for a plea and trial preparation hearing on 3 August, with a potential trial set for for 17 January 2022.
 
A trial date has been set for a 19-year-old man charged with the murder of a teenager who disappeared after calling his family to say he was on his way home.

Lewis Ashdown, of Normansland, Fairwarp, Uckfield, East Sussex, appeared at Lewes Crown Court charged with the murder of Marc Williams.

Ashdown, who appeared by video-link, spoke only to confirm his name and date of birth during the short hearing.

Judge Christine Laing QC approved a request by Ashdown’s legal team for a psychiatric report to be prepared on the defendant.

The judge adjourned the case for a plea and trial preparation hearing to be held on August 3 with a trial set for for January 17 2022.

She told the defendant: “You are going to be in court on August 3 and on that date I anticipate the indictment, which is the charge that you face, will be put to you and you would be expected to put forward a plea.”

Trial date set for 19-year-old accused of murder of teenager
 
Lots of questions here. A recreation ground seems a strange place to spend your evening ? How was it known the 2 were together and spent the evening here? How did each of them get to Maresfield and how did they intend to get home again. See no mention of either of them driving and very rural area. LA was seen in Crowborough the next morning 11am near the pub he worked at. Where did he go that night and how did he get to Crowborough. It is beleived LA caught a bus from Crowborough. How did police find him in Eastbourne and decided to arrest him?
 
jackal67 said:
Lots of questions here. A recreation ground seems a strange place to spend your evening ? How was it known the 2 were together and spent the evening here? How did each of them get to Maresfield and how did they intend to get home again. See no mention of either of them driving and very rural area. LA was seen in Crowborough the next morning 11am near the pub he worked at. Where did he go that night and how did he get to Crowborough. It is beleived LA caught a bus from Crowborough. How did police find him in Eastbourne and decided to arrest him?
Click to expand...

A few answers!

I'm not sure I agree a rec is an odd place for teenagers to hang out. It's light till 10pm-ish at the moment. If they haven't got much money and are active outdoorsy types rather than slump in front of the telly/laptop types, which these two were if you consider the urbex activities, then I think it might be a relatively normal place to spend time, talk, run into friends, maybe drink or smoke. There isn't much for teens to do in a place like that. Even the pub is going to be full of your parents' friends.

Check this out, which seems like exactly the sort of nonsense they might have got up to in happier times: TikTok: Warning over teenagers getting stuck in play swings

Marc at least was reported to have cycled there.

If Lewis stayed in the local area overnight, he would most likely have taken a 29 bus to Crowborough the next day for work - the same bus he left on shortly afterwards in the opposite direction. If he used the bus regularly, he probably had a smartcard.

Why he went to Eastbourne and how LE knew where to find him is certainly very curious. It would be interesting to know what happened/was said in the hour or so he spent at work, and what state he was in if he'd spent the night away from home/out in the open. If his defence team have applied for psychiatric evaluations, one can only imagine his behaviour there was erratic, so perhaps a colleague tipped them off.

Brighton & Hove buses radiate out from Brighton. If Marc took a 29 all the way from Crowborough to Brighton, it would have taken him about 1hr 20 minutes, and if he then took a 12 out of Brighton to Eastbourne, the same again. (There are other ways to do that journey, but just as a thought experiment.) If police had a tip off from a colleague, they could literally have followed him, as the slowness of the bus would have given them ample catch-up time.

JMO
 
JuicyLucy said:
A few answers!

I'm not sure I agree a rec is an odd place for teenagers to hang out. It's light till 10pm-ish at the moment. If they haven't got much money and are active outdoorsy types rather than slump in front of the telly/laptop types, which these two were if you consider the urbex activities, then I think it might be a relatively normal place to spend time, talk, run into friends, maybe drink or smoke. There isn't much for teens to do in a place like that. Even the pub is going to be full of your parents' friends.

Check this out, which seems like exactly the sort of nonsense they might have got up to in happier times: TikTok: Warning over teenagers getting stuck in play swings

Marc at least was reported to have cycled there.

If Lewis stayed in the local area overnight, he would most likely have taken a 29 bus to Crowborough the next day for work - the same bus he left on shortly afterwards in the opposite direction. If he used the bus regularly, he probably had a smartcard.

Why he went to Eastbourne and how LE knew where to find him is certainly very curious. It would be interesting to know what happened/was said in the hour or so he spent at work, and what state he was in if he'd spent the night away from home/out in the open. If his defence team have applied for psychiatric evaluations, one can only imagine his behaviour there was erratic, so perhaps a colleague tipped them off.

Brighton & Hove buses radiate out from Brighton. If Marc took a 29 all the way from Crowborough to Brighton, it would have taken him about 1hr 20 minutes, and if he then took a 12 out of Brighton to Eastbourne, the same again. (There are other ways to do that journey, but just as a thought experiment.) If police had a tip off from a colleague, they could literally have followed him, as the slowness of the bus would have given them ample catch-up time.

JMO
Click to expand...
Thanks for your insight very useful. I thought Lewis wasn't found until the Tuesday though? Maybe they tracked his phone. <modsnip> Could he have had a friend in Eastbourne he stayed with ?
 
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infinit said:
Police searching for missing teenagers after night out | The Argus

This is from the Bank Holiday Monday reporting Lewis was at work on the Sunday morning e.g. the morning after.

Wonder if he wanted to try carry on as normal, saw no Police waiting when he got to work so went in but then after an hour the fear of who was coming through the door got too much? Which arguably would go against any insanity defence.
Click to expand...
Yes I thought I had read that Lewis went into work on the sunday morning but left at 11am and was then seen boarding a bus in the town centre. So when he got to Eastbourne he may have stayed with someone until tuesday, slept rough or maybe got a B and B room?
 
JuicyLucy said:
It's quite confusing, and not helped by the fact that a lot of the media reports from when LA was still thought to be involuntarily missing now seem to have been suppressed.

They met up in Maresfield on Saturday 29th, though the charge is that LA murdered MW on Sunday 30th (i.e. after midnight). The charge also appears to be that the murder took place at Maresfield Rec, according to the Brighton Argus report linked below (not that the Argus is a particular journalistic pinnacle, but it's a direct quote from proceedings), which I think is new information. So it does now beg the additional question of how on earth LA moved MW's dead body from Maresfield Rec to the woodland at Heron's Ghyll where it was found.

LA was arrested on Tuesday 1 June. In my mind, I had thought that was the same day he showed up at work in Crowborough and then left precipitously, which is why I speculated police might have followed him after a tip-off. That would mean he spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday night elsewhere, although I'm sure I read that he returned home and then left again somewhere in the middle of that.

Alternatively, he may have spent only Saturday and Sunday nights in the wind and gone to work on Bank Holiday Monday, which is something I feel I have also read, in which case perhaps someone was harbouring him in Eastbourne overnight into Tuesday when he was arrested.

It's difficult, because much of the local coverage, which was the most detailed and accurate at the time, has since been yanked. So if anyone can find some definitive timings, that would be useful.

Young man appears in court accused of murder of teenage friend at village rec

JMO
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Yes. How on earth did he move the body to Herons Ghyll? Could he have gone home and borrowed a car? What happened to Marcs bike also ?
 
jackal67 said:
Yes. How on earth did he move the body to Herons Ghyll? Could he have gone home and borrowed a car? What happened to Marcs bike also ?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it didn't happen in the vicinity of the playing field? What way would Marc likely take if he was walking home (I don't know the area) and would he have come closer to where his body was found? Considering he phoned to say he was coming home could it have happened on his way back?
 
jackal67 said:
Yes. How on earth did he move the body to Herons Ghyll? Could he have gone home and borrowed a car? What happened to Marcs bike also ?
Click to expand...

We don't know for definite there was a bike.

I think that came through when someone on the original missing Sussex Police FB page queried did he have a green bike as they had seen someone on the Saturday night with one. I think another poster said he did have a green bike, but not sure anything came out of that being him that night. Could be though.

We don't know what happened post approx 11.30pm on the Saturday night to MW, or where exactly he was at that time. They may have been at Maresfield earlier but moved on to somewhere else.
 
MsMiniSleuth said:
We don't know for definite there was a bike.

I think that came through when someone on the original missing Sussex Police FB page queried did he have a green bike as they had seen someone on thd Saturday night with one. I think another poster said he did have a green bike, but not sure anything came out of him being out with it that night.

We don't know what happened post approx 11.30pm on the Saturday night to MW, or where exactly he was at that time. They may have been at Maresfield earlier but moved on to somewhere else.
Click to expand...
The charge said the murder took place at Maresfield rec though? on Sunday 30th so after midnight on Saturday?
 
Young man appears in court accused of murder of teenage friend at village rec

"The court clerk told him: “The charge is that on May 30, 2021, at the High Street, Maresfield, at the recreation ground, you murdered Marc Williams.

“That is an indictable only offence that can only be dealt with in the crown court.”"

Interesting. I hope the phone call to say he was on his way home wasn't forced.
 
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