Re-investigations of the case in the 2000s established that John Cannan was the prime suspect
This is backwards. In 2000 Diana Lamplugh told the police she thought Cannan did it. The investigation was reopened to try to pin it on Cannan. It did not look at anyone else (it did not, for example, look at what other sex offenders had just been released from prison in July 1986).
although the media had already speculated that Cannan was responsible for Lamplugh's abduction and death at the time of her disappearance.
Completely wrong. Cannan was not mentioned before 1989, after he was convicted of murdering Shirley Banks, and he was mentioned by newspapers. Nobody had heard of him in 1986.
Cannan bears a striking resemblance to the photofits of the man seen with Lamplugh on the day she vanished.
There was one photofit and one artist's sketch, which look different to each other. Which of these does Cannan resemble, and in whose opinion? After the reconstruction was broadcast in October 1986, the police received a number of calls from the public pointing out that Suzy's boss at the estate agency, who appeared in the reconstruction and who went to the house to look for her, looks remarkably similar to the pencil sketch. A writer has suggested the same sketch looks like Fred West. It also looks a bit like the drummer out of Ultravox. Cannan was never placed on an identity parade so there is no witness corroboration of this supposed resemblance. Some months later, a BMW belonging to a Mr Kiper from Antwerp was found abandoned in London. This Mr Kiper was traced. The only witness who supposedly saw "Mr Kipper", and described him as of medium height and aged between 25 and 30, later declared that the short, podgy 44-year-old Antwerp man was a dead ringer for "Mr Kipper".
Cannan's nickname in prison was also "Mr Kipper" due to his preference for wearing kipper-style broad ties.
This trope has never been substantiated, and is clearly not true. First, it emerged only in 2000, 14 years later, after the police indicated they were trying to fit this to Cannan, and after witty lags started calling him this as a joke. Second, the source was one other criminal; there is no evidence that Cannan was generally so known. Third, kipper ties went out in the 1970s. Fourth, in prison he'd have worn whatever he was told. Fifth, other origins for this supposed name have been mooted, including that he liked kippers, and kipped (napped) a lot; which is true? Sixth, why would a sex criminal use an alias that led back to himself? Seventh, what did the police do to rule out the possibility of an ex-prisoner informing on Cannan to exercise a grudge?
Banks' car was discovered hidden and repainted in his garage with a false number plate affixed reading "SLP 386". Police believe this number plate could refer to Suzy Lamplugh (SLP) and 1986, the year of her murder.
'Speculated' would be more accurate. They had no evidence for this.
Alternatively, police believed it could also be coordinates on a map
Which they searched and found nothing.
He claimed that he had bought the car off a "Bristol businessman" who was responsible for "the murders of Shirley Banks, Suzy Lamplugh and another girl", and that this man was in a lot of trouble.
The context for this was that he tried to explain away the car to the police by saying he'd bought it in an auction in Bristol. He was trying to suggest that whoever sold it to him was their man. When pressed, he could not describe the layout of the car auction site, and it was clear he had never been there. He was not confessing to any of these crimes; he was ineptly trying to say that a big boy did it and ran away.
Cannan himself was known for masquerading as a Bristol businessman.
He was from the Midlands. He did not move to Bristol until 1987. Cannan was not "known for masquerading as a Bristol businessman" in 1986.
the prison he was released from was three miles from the estate agent office Lamplugh worked in.
It is 4.5 miles away, not three.
In the time leading up to disappearance, it was later disclosed
By whom?
that Lamplugh had a new boyfriend from the Bristol area, to which Cannan later moved
I.e. he wasn't from Bristol in 1986. Suzy's supposed liaison with a man from Bristol happened two years before, at a time when Cannan was in jail.
and from where his family were from
His family were not from Bristol. They were from Sutton Coldfield, a hundred miles away north-east of Birmingham.
he was known to have had work experience in the area at the time while on day release from the open prison.
His work experience was in Acton, which is actually further away from Fulham than Du Cane Road, where the Wormwood Scrubs hostel was.
Witnesses came forward to tell police that they had seen a man and a woman resembling Lamplugh and Cannan having an argument in a car on the day of the disappearance
They came forward fourteen years later. Apparently, despite having forgotten this incident for that long, they remembered every detail including the day, date and time - after the police named Cannan.
and that the car was a dark-coloured left-hand BMW.
Cannan did not own a BMW in 1986 and the one he later acquired was RHD
This was significant as Cannan owned a dark-coloured left-hand drive BMW, which he used to commit crimes with a fellow inmate.
Cannan did not own a BMW in 1986 and the one he later acquired was RHD. In July 1986 he co-owned a red Sierra with an inmate. The police had already said it was Cannan, Cannan later had a BMW, so the "witnesses" described the car they thought Cannan had. Unfortunately, he didn't own it until 1987.
Cannan had also shown up uninvited to a house that was for sale in Fulham days before Lamplugh was last seen believing that the young female occupant was alone in the house, and started acting strangely until the woman's husband appeared, causing Cannan to quickly leave.
A claim first made, with total recall of day, date and time, fourteen years later.
Witnesses also placed Cannan looking into Lamplugh's estate agent's window the day before she went missing.
A claim first made, with total recall of day, date and time, fourteen years later. It's 2021: who do we remember looking in a shop window in 2007? How do we know this wasn't Suzy's boss?
Cannan did not have an alibi for the days after leaving prison and conveniently does not recall where he was, despite having an impeccable memory of other events at the time.
Cannan did have an alibi and knows where he was. He went back to Sutton Coldfield and gave his mother, sister and brother-in-law as persons able to verify this. The police did not check in 1990 and all three were dead by 2000. They decided this meant he had no alibi. In fact, he had provided one at the time. He had nowhere else to go and had no money.
The Crown Prosecution Service agreed that the police reinvestigation in the early 2000s had been excellent and thorough, but ultimately decided that there was insufficient evidence to charge Cannan with the murder of Lamplugh.
The police so strongly felt Cannan was responsible, however, that they announced in a press conference in November 2002, in an extremely rare move, that they believed Cannan was responsible.
This was the family's influence. The investigation surfaced no evidence, which is why the CPS threw it out.
While in prison, Cannan told a psychiatrist that he might well "reveal all" about Lamplugh when his mother died.
Which she has and yet he hasn't. He's a psychopath; psychopaths say things like this to get attention.
He will be eligible for parole in 2022.
And the Parole Board can decide to keep him in jail for killing Suzy, even though he's never been charged, and the CPS have seen no evidence on which to do so.
The problem with this section is that it repeats gossip, hearsay, conjecture and inaccuracies as facts even though they have all been debunked in the public domain, and even though the CPS thinks they amount to exactly nothing.
All it needs to say is that the actual "case" against Cannan originated with Diana Lamplugh. It amounts to his being about 5 miles away from Fulham until the week before Suzy's disappearance, and an offender. Everything else that purports to be "evidence" surfaced only after he was named and after the press decided that he looked like "Mr Kipper". It all came from people who noticed nothing at the time, but who, 14 years later, remembered exactly what they seen and when and where. The CPS were not persuaded and declined to act.
It's not for the article, but it is reminiscent of the Rachel Nickell case, when the judge instructed the jury to throw out the charges against Colin Stagg, and the police irritably announced that they weren't looking for anyone else. Some years later, someone else was convicted.
en.m.wikipedia.org
