| The Dream Solution
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15/06/93
- So who did kill her?
By Mark Sylvester
South London Press
THE family of two sisters cleared of the murder of bank clerk
Alison Shaughnessy have called on police to re-open their enquiry
into the killing.
Michelle and Lisa Taylor walked free from the Court of Appeal
on Friday after three judges accepted the defence's argument that
police witheld vital information at their Old Bailey trial in
July last year.
The evidence would have destroyed a key prosecution witness evidence
and the judges decided that sensational press coverage of the
sisters trial meant a re-trial was impossible. Police are refusing
to comment on the case, but the girls' family claim police must
start a new inquiry into the murder in Vardens Road, Battersea,
in June 1991.
Dad Derek Taylor told the South London Press yesterday, "The
police have got to go back to square one, "The fact is they
had the girls, and they fitted the case around them. Everything
else was forgotten.
"The murderers of Rachel Nickell and Penny Bell are still
free. They were also frenzied attacks, and it has to be a possibility
that they are linked." Three judges led by Lord Justice McCowan
quashed the conviction after hearing that the only witness to
place the girls at the scene of the crime had earlier told police
that one of the women was 'probably black.'
Also unknown to the defence was the fact that the prosecution
witness Dr. Michael Unsworth-White, had claimed a £25,000
reward put up by Barclays Bank, where Alison worked.
The appeal judges agreed that 'sensational and innacurate' press
reporting of the trial had created a real risk of prejudice.
Waiting in the wings at the appeal, although he was never called,
was Home Office pathologist Dr. Albert Hunt, who has made a special
study of injuries caused by stabbing.
In an independent report on the murder he concluded, "It
seems impossible for an individual of the same height as the deceased
5ft. 3in. — to inflict the injuries. Both Michelle and Lisa
Taylor are 5ft. 2in. tall, and in my view this must exclude either
of them from being responsible." |
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