| The Dream Solution
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??/??/?? - The innocents caged?
SR EXCLUSIVE
by Lisa Collins
SISTERS Michelle and Lisa Taylor are currently serving life
sentences in Hockley's Bullwood Hall for a violent and bloody
murder many believe they did not commit. Bernard King, a doorman
from Basildon, is one of them.
"I have no doubts that they are innocent and will not
rest until those two young girls are free," he pledged
last October. In November they were granted leave to appeal.
Their fight for freedom is well and truly under way, believes
Bernard.
Michelle, 22, and Lisa, 19, were convicted last July of murdering
Alison Shaughnessy in June 1991. She had been stabbed 54 times
in a violent, frenzied attack. The murder trial was sensational
a classic crime of passion, alleged the prosecution and the
tabloids loved it.
Alison's husband. John, was Michelle's first and only lover.
She had begun a relationship with him in 1989 when they worked
together at a private health clinic in south London. She did
not realise then that he was seeing another woman, nor that
he intended to marry her.
On the eve of the wedding, which Michelle attended, John slept
with Michelle and continued a brief affair with her afterwards.
Distraught and confused by what was going on Michelle confided
in a diary that was later to prove lethal in the prosecution
case against her.
She wrote that Alison was an "unwashed bitch" and
later, "My dream solution would be for Alison to disappear
as if she never existed." Bernard was in court on the
last day of the trial. "By that stage," he says,
"the press had had a field day. Everyone believed they'd
done it."
He had never met Michelle or Alison, or their family, but
he did not believe they were guilty. He sent letters of support
to Michelle and her family, was instrumental in launching
the 'Justice for Lisa and Michelle Taylor,' and has offered
practical and emotional support as best he can ever since.
"Something just rankled. I never thought they did it
and that's why I got involved. There never was any evidence
other than circumstantial factors but sadly the jury accepted
what the prosecution said. How many other girls Michelle's
age have written that they wished their rival in love would
disappear?"
His support is deeply appreciated, "Bernard has been
absolutely wonderful," says Michelle's mum Ann. "Terrific,"
adds her husband Derek. At their home, in Forest Hill there,
are 'Free Michelle and Lisa Taylor' posters single out their
house from the others.
The back room has been completely given over as an "office
for their campaign a fax, newspaper cuttings and campaign
slogans all over the walls. Ann and Derek are open and friendly,
despite the bashing they have undoubtedly been meted out at
the hands of the media the sisters' first ground of appeal
was prejudicial media coverage of the trial.
They visited the girls in Bullwood last weekend and are glad
they are together but they miss them and cannot accept they
have been locked away for a crime they are adamant their daughters
did not commit.
The case for appeal is certainly a strong one. Michelle's
friend Jeanette Tapp gave three statements to the police saying
that the girls had been with her at the clinic (where Michelle
and Jeanette had live-in rooms) when Alison was murdered.
She retracted this alibi after she had been arrested at dawn
and told that she would be charged with conspiracy to murder.
Ann Taylor believes Jeanette is a well-meaning but weak girl
who simply changed her story under pressure. Even if the girls
had not been with Jeanette the tlming of the murder makes
their involvement virtually impossible. Alison left work on
the day she was killed at 5.02.
At the earliest she could not have arrived home in Wandsworth
until 5.37 the police accept this. Witnesses saw Michelle
and Lisa Taylor at the clinic in Lambeth at 6pm.
That leaves 23 minutes for the girls to get into Alison's
flat, stab her 54 times, get rid of all the forensic evidence,
change and dispose of their clothes presumably bloodsoaked
alter such a savage attack and drive, through rush hour traffic,
four miles to the clinic where incidentally Michelle then
arranged flowers with John Shaughnessy.
Nobody mentioned that the girls behaviour seemed in the least
bit strange. "The whole case is crazy," says Bernard.
"Let's hope when the appeal comes up they'll see more
sense." |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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