OK, so this is important; like the rest of us you have no special information, only what's in the public domain. DV knows more because he has reinterviewed a number of witnesses. It's important to be familiar with the timeline and the key facts, as I will show.
No, that's actually incorrect. On 28/7/86, and at time of the police press conference on the morning of 29/7/86, there was no such witness. HR, the neighbour, claimed to have seen a man with a blonde woman who had her back to him. The duration of this sighting was about 5 to 10 seconds. He did not identify her as SJL. The police
assumed and broadcast that this was SJL. The initial request for more witnesses to this supposed sighting drew a blank, however, the police indicating they were ""disappointed at the public response so far":
This 1pm broadcast was on the Wednesday, so was within the first 48 hours. There was no support from other witnesses for the claim that SJL had been there. Those accounts took weeks to arrive.
Any claim of "three independently corroborated" witnesses overlooks that the second two did not come forward at the time, and thus had time to be influenced by each other, and that they contradicted each other. One supposedly saw a scruffy man carrying champagne, and another saw a man with a broken nose without champagne. HR described the man he saw as 25 to 30 and didn't mention champagne, but later also claimed the Antwerp diamond dealer to be a dead ringer for the man he saw. This is a bit odd considering Antwerp man was short, dumpy, nearly 20 years older than the lower bound of HR's previous age estimate, had an alibi and owned a BMW, which JC did not.
Again, it can't, not really. All we know for sure about SJL's car is that it was found opposite 123SR at 10.01pm. There are sightings of "it", however, opposite WJ's house from as early as 12 noon. WJ's own supposed sighting was at 12.40, at which time SJL had not yet left Sturgis. It was next noticed by a cabbie at about 2pm, but not by two BT workers who were at work in the road nearby until 4pm. It was then supposedly noticed by BW elsewhere altogether at 2.45, then noticed in SR again by the owner of the garage at around 5.15pm. Given all of this, the only sighting that's likely to be accurate is that of the garage owner, in whose way it was and who had just got in from work so would have been able to work out when he saw it.
Quite. The overwhelming majority of supposed JC sightings, on that day or in the general area, came in between three and fourteen years later, in response to police accusations against JC for which they solicited sightings. In 1986, nobody reliably saw him.
Unfortunately, it's a matter of opinion that these sightings do match. The Mr Kipper sketch does not look like the photofit, and none of the people who provided either of these was ever put in front of an identity parade with JC on it. The idea that they somehow match is police and press speculation.
OK, so we have your personal confidence. Good. Unfortunately, JD hasn't solved the crime, nor has he convinced the CPS that he has enough to bring charges. Presumably the CPS have seen all of his best arguments and aren't persuaded by them, whereas you are. Other opinions are equally valid.
Again, no, that's
not the bottom line. The bottom line is that the investigation that the police have carried out has failed to identify the killer to the satisfaction of the CPS. Meanwhile DV - and others - have noted significant errors and oversights in their approach that even the police grudgingly concede. On that basis, the question of what happened to SJL remains open.
Well, one reason would be that JC is not in fact a "suspect based on evidence". There may be evidence none of us knows about, but so far as any of us knows, there's no evidence he has ever been to Fulham, no evidence he was there that day, no evidence he ever met SJL, and no evidence he had killed anyone before Shirley Banks. He's a suspect based on supposition that started and was dismissed in 1989.
DV has of course been reinterviewing witnesses, but I'd agree that all accounts by people who think they can remember someone from 3, 14 or more years ago is unreliable. Lags amusing themselves by saying JC's nickname was 'Kipper' after 1989 are also not reliable.
I'm sure you're right. Of course he would. But he'd do that even if he hadn't done it. It gets him the same gratification and, at the time he started doing it, it carried no risk. He was on a whole-of-life term anyway to begin with, so it's not like it jeopardised any potential early release. It was good clean riskless fun to twit the police and make them look foolish by getting them futilely digging up random places. It must have had him in fits. Where can I get the fools to dig up next?
His attitude completely changed when the law changed, and his term was fixed, with an end in sight. Suddenly all the fun and games turned out to have consequences. And funnily enough that's exactly when he stopped kidding the police he knew something, and started insisting he didn't.
No, the relevant opinion is that of the CPS, who will not proceed because the case is evidently
not credible. In fact, between the lines, we can infer that the police have been told they need to prove any connection to SJL. This is obviously why they keep searching JC-related sites. If they haven't even established that, then they have nothing.
His name's Jim Dickie, but never mind. What you're expressing is your personal confidence again, but unfortunately he obviously hasn't considered all possible suspects, because he has never searched the PoW. What he has done is focused on excluding anyone who doesn't fit.
They've either got evidence of his "activities and MO in and around Hammersmith and Fulham", or they've got nothing. If they can't say for sure he ever went to Fulham or met SJL, they've got nothing.
In the mid 1980s about 4,000 rapists a year were convicted. Presumably almost all were jailed, in which case about the same number were also released each year, having served their time. Cannan was in the Scrubs, a large prison that by itself holds about 1.3% of the UK's prison population. It's reasonable to infer therefore that it released a similar share of jailed rapists each year; that is, 52. So a rapist a week was released from the Scrubs and had the same opportunities, in the same area, as JC did. What steps did the police take to eliminate the other 30 or so rapists previously released that year? If - as I suspect - the answer is 'none', then as well as completely undermining any case against JC, this would also say they weren't conducting a proper investigation. If SJL could have been abducted by any of 30 people and they've ignored 29 for no good reason, all their circumstantial evidence is worthless because there could be similar evidence against all the others.
No, you don't. First, you identify everywhere she could have gone. You've got four, at most five places:
- 37SR. Searched, not there; may not even have taken the keys.
- 123SR. Searched, not there. Did not have keys, was not expected.
- Home. Perhaps she felt ill. Searched, not there.
- Parents' house, same reason. Searched, not there.
- The PoW, to collect belongings you've been told about. Went there, landlord tells you she never came. Not searched.
You see...to me, there's an obvious odd one out there. So why would you start involving the public, with their dodgy memories and their inability to tell a smart 25-year-old man from a pudgy 44-year-old man from a scruffy man carrying champagne, and regard anything they tell you as useful, before you've exhausted all the obvious avenues?
But it could have done if they had checked JC's alibi. The police failed to do so. Then when all the witnesses able to give him one had died claimed he had no alibi.
No, that's incorrect again. That might be what he
should have done, but it isn't what he actually
did do, as related to DV:
I
then asked Albert if there had been suspects eliminated in the original 1986–87 case.
‘No, no, no, no, no. There wasn’t even a matrix about possible suspects. That was drawn up subsequently… and we did it, in the reinvestigation, and it all kept coming back to Cannan. We eliminated every other suspect. There was only Cannan; Cannan was the only one still standing…’
‘And you don’t think there’s any way that there’s someone in the inquiry, previously, that’s been missed?’ Caroline asked.
'We looked at everyone that had come into the inquiry beforehand. Erm. And we eliminated the same people, again. Even though they’d been eliminated the first time.’
‘On what basis? How did you eliminate them?’ I asked.
‘On certain criteria. Were they in Fulham at the time? Did they know Suzy? Were they in a relationship or previous relationship with her?’ Albert replied.
Videcette, David. FINDING SUZY: The Hunt for Missing Estate Agent Suzy Lamplugh and 'Mr Kipper' (p. 229). DNA Books. Kindle Edition.
(my
emphasis)
In 2000 JD eliminated only people identified in the original investigation who were in Fulham and knew her. They did not eliminate, for example, people at a pub in Putney.
Again, this is just supposition of problematic accuracy. We've just seen that JD simply re-eliminated the previous suspects in order to leave just JC. He did not, as you suggest, include " landlords, temporary landlords, known persons of concern" at all. He focused on the original suspects plus JC, and we know this because he says so. There is no evidence that he investigated the 30-odd recently released rapists, for example.
You see, that is actually quite chilling. You have constructively said,
He's a wrong 'un and it fits him. You may not be aware that you have, but you have. Terrible things happened...it looked like him...he had champagne (really?)...he went to wine bars (sasy who?)...and we can't fit it round anyone else.
Do you not see the issue with this approach? That's how people like Stefan Kiszko and Colin Stagg and Barry George got framed; it's how Jean Charles de Menezes got liquidated and then lied about; and the worst of it is that in the case of the framings the actual killer was left at large.
The police shouldn't be going through a catalogue of villains and deciding which one this unsolved case can be made to fit. They should look at the evidence and work forwards. Looking at where SJL was going might have been a good place to start, wouldn't you agree?
I would politely disagree. If you Google images for "Suzy Lamplugh" the first two images are of SJL and the next two are of JC. Literally anyone who's heard of her has heard of him. A competent defence lawyer would get it thrown out on the basis that a fair trial is impossible.
Why the discourtesy? The gratuitously offensive remarks? I make no unevidenced claims; I've arrived at what I think off the evidence. You've seen no more than I have, and DV has seen more than either of us. Your view rests not on the evidence, but with your
a priori position that the police have this right, which suggests that you're under some significant misapprehensions. Mine is that the specific facts and the failure to find a body or persuade the CPS show the police have not got this right. DV has not publicly alleged anything. He has just said that there's a place SJL possibly-to-probably went that should have been searched.
'...the precursor to the reinvestigation was the information given to Diana Lamplugh from the anonymous source in November 1999. That’s what kicks everything off again, just before the turn of the millennium.’
‘The police have never really talked publicly about the specifics of that information, or where it came from, but Diana does, to some extent. On 4 December 1999, she’s all over the media saying that she’s come into possession of some new, important information on Suzy’s case. She claimed that the information had come from the prison education system.’
Caroline explained that McGredy-Hunt held a letter from Diana dated 18 November 1999, thanking him for sending on his thesis to her, and in that letter, Diana explained that she’d passed this thesis to the police.
Back in the first week of December 1999, the media had been all over this exciting news story, which told of an anonymous source from the prison education system who had corresponded with Diana Lamplugh by letter and phone.
Having interviewed McGredy-Hunt at length, Caroline and I both knew the complete content of the information he’d passed to Diana, the same information that she’d subsequently passed to the police.
Had it not been for the impeccable records McGredy-Hunt had kept – copies of letters from the police, from Diana, details of phone calls – we could not have unmasked him as the source of the thesis.
Of course, it could just be a coincidence that in December 1999 DL pesters the police with her source (who is actually a bit of a whack job) and they then reopen the case.
Hang on a minute. They have a lot of trump cards they aren't going to mention, but they're fine saying JC did it on no evidence? They have evidence that would persuade us could we see it, but the CPS has and it doesn't persuade them?
I can't think of any that have done that. DV is the first writer in 20 years to suggest that this was not JC.
Again with the discourtesy. I expect many, many things are a mystery to you. It's a matter of considerable public concern that the police are so easily, comprehensively mystified. I have bad news for you, though. WS is not a place where people come to read posts that tell us,
de haut en bas, that the police are jolly fine chaps who have the answers and if we challenge then we should pipe down; or that the plod's unsubstantiated opinions are worth more than anyone else's, even when exposed as factually inaccurate. It's 2022; that forelock-tugging view of the police no longer exists.
Would you like more up to date examples?
Met chief censured for hampering corruption inquiry into investigation of 1987 death of private detective
www.theguardian.com
The Metropolitan police have been described as “institutionally corrupt” and its commissioner, Cressida Dick, personally censured for obstruction by an independent inquiry set up to review the murder of the private detective Daniel Morgan….“The Metropolitan police’s culture of obfuscation and a lack of candour is unhealthy in any public service. Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit. In the panel’s view, this constitutes a form of institutional corruption.”
That relates to 2013 to 2021, and includes in its criticism the recently departed Cressida D1ck, who hampered a corruption inquiry. You remember her - she was involved in liquidating that Brazilian electrician, which the police then lied about. Bang up to date, no?
On the contrary, it's a perfectly legitimate statistical inference from public data. It's also a basic technique from data science, to check whether the data you're looking at is plausible and reconcilable to other data sets.
I sense you're not
au fait with this, but it is quite easily understood unless you're unusually easily mystified, so I will try to explain.
We know that the police fail to solve 94% of crime.
It's a very consistent non-solve rate across most categories. They don't solve 97.1% of sexual offences, 95.7% of theft offences, 95.6% of criminal damage, and so on. So it is not like the police solve 100% of one crime and 0% of another, for a very misleading average 50% solve rate. It's about 94 to 96% for everything, really.
The puzzling exception is homicide. It's quite hard to establish a solve rate for murders because they take a long time to reach a conviction. So the clearup rate for 2021 murders could be 50% today, based on convictions to date, but 90% in five years' time. It appears to be about 80%, with charges brought in over 90% of cases but a few acquittals. Now right away that murder clearup rate looks
weird. How can the police solve 3% of sex offences but 80% of murders - what explains the difference? What are they doing to solve murders that they aren't doing to solve rapes?
Well, an obvious possibility is nothing and that the murders number is simply wrong. If we take last year's figure of 660 murders of which 80% are likely to be solved, that's 528. If that 528 is 20% of the real number, the real annual total's close to 3,000.
Can there really be 2,500 more murders a year than we know of? Sure, as it happens. About that number of people do go missing and are never found (~99% who do, are). So the hypothesis is actually supported both by missing person data and by the likelihood that there is no exceptionalism in murder clear up rates. Nothing refutes it other than your personal incredulity that this could be true, but that's not actually an argument. See?
"Trust me, I'm a police officer."
Which you've got. You just say
- JC drank there
- "whenever JC was in an area, terrible things happened"
- search warrant please.
If the police can get a warrant to dig up his mother's kitchen floor - which would have entailed persuading a judge that
he had dug up and replaced her floor without her noticing - they can get one to search the PoW. The police need to stop thinking "that's not possible" and start thinking "there's got to be a way"
100% agree.
modscip noted; you got a bit tetchy there. Can I suggest you actually read DV's book? It's clear you have not because your questions and assumptions are dealt with in it. His hypothesis is not wild, names nobody and is based on the reasonable observation that a place SJL may have been heading to was never searched.
As shown above, DV spoke to JD who confirms this did not happen in 1986 or 2000. If you'd read DV's book you would know this; why are you critiquing it when you don't know what he has said? Surely you should find out what he actually says, rather than disagreeing discourteously with things he has not said?
Who says CV is a suspect?
I've looked. He was filmed wheeling away a bin in which her body was found. He was
not convicted because he looked a bit like Mr Kipper, was a wrong 'un, and might have been in the area - which is the case you have outlined against JC. Can you elaborate at all?
to some checks to be licenced.
