| The Dream Solution
- Documents |
??/07/92
- Transcript of Sky News July 92
POLICE RECONSTRUCTION
COMMENTATOR
5.17, the first possible train to Clapham Junction and a
short train ride. 5.27 and a walk up St. John's Hill, Battersea
with her new husband to 41 Vardens Road. Police reconstructed
the journey. The earliest Alison could have returned they
say is 5.37.
COMMENTATOR
"Psycho knife monster kills bank girl Alison".
READS NEWS
"Woman clerk dies in frenzied knife attack".
HEADLINES
COMMENTATOR
A year ago sisters Michelle and Lisa TAYLOR stood accused
of stabbing Alison 54 times in a jealous rage. They got
life for the murder.
MRS BLACKMORE
We came for guilty, we got it. The sentence didn't matter,
nothing would ever atone for Alison's death.
BOB BLACKMORE
Now we know who actually killed Alison, that's all we wanted
to know.
JOHN SHAUGHNESSY
Alison can now rest in peace now that we know that these
two people have been sent to prison.
COMMENTATOR
But Alison's husband John had been having an affair with
one of the convicted sisters, a fact reported in lurid detail
throughout the case. In an appeal this week the TAYLOR girls'
lawyers will say the press twisted the evidence and prevented
a fair trial.
ANN TAYLOR
I mean the second day of the trial the press had actually
found the girls guilty. I mean one of them was "Killer
wept as she stroked victim's hair". That wasn't part
of the evidence.
COMMENTATOR
Today Sky News can reveal vital new information of someone
who confessed to stabbing a woman at about that time, a
man who was never questioned.
COMMENTATOR
And he came out quite openly and he said "I have just
stabbed a young girl". Now that is the sort of thing
that you don't take lightly.
COMMENTATOR
Police enquiries concentrated on the exclusive Churchill
Clinic in South London, where JOHN SHAUGHNESSY and Michelle
TAYLOR both worked. One of their jobs was to arrange the
flowers. They both lived nearby and they became lovers.
Their work often ended in sex but JOHN SHAUGHNESSY was already
preparing to marry another girl, Alison. The night before
his wedding in Ireland he slept in this hotel with Michelle.
Soon the newlyweds moved into Battersea. Although still
working together John and Michelle's affair seemed to have
ended. That fateful Monday Michelle finished the flowers
and gave John a lift home. They discovered the body together.
ANN TAYLOR
Michelle was hysterical and I'd, first of all I didn't know
if it was her or Lisa, and I ended up shouting at her down
the ' phone trying to calm her down to mkae some sense out
of what she was saying. She said that John's wife is dead.
COMMENTATOR
At first the stabbing seemed the work of a crazed stranger,
almost certainly a man. Then police found a diary in Michelle's
room, written with words of love and lust for John.
MICHAEL HOLMES (SOLICITOR)
Those words were blazened across the headlines of the press
for most of the trial. "Alison the unwashed bitch,
the dream solution would be for her to disappear".
And the police thought Ah, motive.
COMMENTATOR
The diary seemed like a murder plan, but on the afternoon
of the murder Michelle said she was miles away, shopping
with her sister in Bromley. Lisa claimed she'd never been
to the flat where Alison died.
MICHAEL HOLMES
Lisa says to the police "I was never there". The
police of course dust the place down for fingerprints, and
what happens? Lisa's fingerprint is found on the back door
of the flat at 41 Vardens Road, so Lisa becomes a liar.
SKY NEWS JULY '92
COMMENTATOR
Michelle TAYLOR has admitted to the jury that she'd lied
to the police when she gave a statement claiming her younger
sister Lisa hadn't been the house where Alison SHAUGHNESSY
was murdered. Two fingerprints belonging to Lisa were found
on the inside of the front door at number 41 Vardens Road
in Battersea.
RECONSTRUCTION
COMMENTATOR
That lie was to haunt them. At a quarter to six on the day
of the murder Doctor Michael UNSWORTH-WHITE was cycling
past Alison's flat. He recalled seeing two girls on some
steps running, but Michelle and Lisa seemed to have a cast-iron
alibi. Workmate Janette Jaqueline TABS, JJ, who told the
police the girls were with her when the murder was committed.
We've reconstructed her statement.
JJ'S STATEMENT
I returned to my flat at about 5 o clock, and then at about
5.15 Michelle and Lisa visited me in my room. We sat and
talked until about 6 o clock and then Michelle left saying
that she was going to meet John to do the flowers.
COMMENTATOR
JJ's evidence seemed to eliminate the sisters from suspicion.
Then suddenly during police investigation, JJ's story changed,
she was now saying she went visiting her mother during the
crucial time and didn't leave for home until much later.
JJ
What I previously said in those statements regarding my
movements, especially in the later part of the day, are
false. I stayed at my mum's until about 7 o clock or just
after. I believe I had something to eat with them, but I
can't be sure. As I was walking up the drive of the Clinic
towards my house I saw Lisa TAYLOR standing on the balcony
outside my room. She waved to me. Michell was not there.
I unpacked my shoping and showed Lisa what I'd bought and
we were discussing my party. Lisa told me that she and Michelle
had been home since just after 5 o clock and that they'd
been waiting for me to come home.
COMMENTATOR
One story was a lie. At two minutes to six staff at the
Churchill saw Michelle and Lisa outside in their car. Police
estimated the time of murder between 5.37 and two minutes
to six. The prosecution version of events was this.
SKY NEWS JULY '92
COMMENTATOR
Michelle who's 21 and Lisa who's 19 drove to Vardens Road
on June 3rd last year and persuaded Alison SHAUGHNESSY to
invite them indoors and as they climbed the stairs Alison
was killed in a frenzied knife attack with her assailant
inflicting 54 wounds, including one that cut through her
throat. She died in three minutes.
COMMENTATOR
The trial headlines made front page news day after day.
MICHAEL HOLMES
This trial was always going to get the attention of the
media, apart from being a murder case there was the famous
sex factor, the mistress factor. We were going to have press
coverage but I never dreamt it was going to be the sort
of press coverage that we actually got.
COMMENTATOR
"The 'killer' mistress who was at lover's wedding".
ANN TAYLOR
You did laugh a bit because you knew that it wasn't true,
and Lisa would say to us "Look what they've printed
now", it wasn't this, that wasn't said, and we kept
saying to her "Don't worry love, the defence haven't
started yet". But it didn't work out that way did it?
COMMENTATOR
But it was the wedding video that had an unexpected role.
ANN TAYLOR
It wasn't part of the evidence, and it wasn't true what
they portrayed. It wasn't a kiss on the lips, it was actually
a peck on the cheek, but they've actually freeze-framed
it, if you freeze-frame the video just as Michelle steps
back from the peck on the cheek, that is the photograph
you get.
COMMENTATOR
"Cheats kiss".
COMMENTATOR
In a unique apeal this week the TAYLOR's will argue that
the press blocked a fair trial, letting the sex factor over-shadow
the evidence. The affair is at the heart of the case for
the defence. The family argue that evidence of an affair
isn't proof of murder. Besides, Michelle had another boyfriend
that January.
ANN TAYLOR
I mean she was going out with somebody else in the January
through to the April, finished with him and then thought,
right I'll have SHAUGHNESSY back, I'll go and bump Alison
off, it's ridiculous.
COMMENTATOR
So who was chasing whom?
MICHAEL HOLMES
What do you make of a man who has an affair with a young
girl, Michelle TAYLOR, continues that affair, nothing wrong
with that, and gets engaged to be married, marries the girl,
asks his ex-girlfriend to the wedding, I supose there's
nothing wrong with that, and then continues the affair and
then has the sauce to say that it wasn't him who was making
the running, it was Michelle.
COMMENTATOR
Michelle's diaries show a relationship that was fading.
ANN TAYLOR
I think the other thing you've got to take into account
is that if Michelle was guilty then she would have destroyed
those diaries.
COMMENTATOR
Diaries which in any case stopped six months before the
murder.
MICHAEL HOLMES
Is she really going to keep it? That's something one would
have got rid of, junk, thrown away, burnt, it's not the
sort of thing you really forget about is it?
COMMENTATOR
There was no blood in the car, no hair, no forensic evidence
except Lisa's fingerprint at the flat, and the lie that
she'd never been there.
MICHAEL HOLMES
She lied because as a young girl she got extremely frightened,
she didn't have the benefit of having a solicitor with her,
and she said "I was never there" because she didn't
want to become involved. Now we've got to go back a year
or two here and remember that we're dealing with two very
young girls, they still are very young, but when Michelle
saw which way the wind was blowing and that the police were
getting pretty suspicious about her, it was the most natural
thing in the world to say to her sister, "No, do be
careful what you say, otherwise they'll rope you into this
as well".
COMMENTATOR
Lisa wasn't the only one to be afraid. Two months after
JJ gave a statement to the police confirming the TAYLOR's
alibi, she was arrested in a dawn raid and charged with
conspiracy to murder. She was held at Battersea Police Station
for the next twelve hours.
JJ
They were saying they were both there at quarter past five,
so I believe they were there at quarter past five.
INTERVIEWER
And you decided to lie for them there and then?
JJ
I didn't think Michelle would kill Alison.
COMMENTATOR
This Sky News reconstruction shows JJ' s taped interview,
in which she changed her evidence, destroying the sisters'
alibi. Police were trying to discover if the TAYLORS had
asked JJ to lie for them.
JJ
They haven' t pressurised me once. They have not pressurised
me once to say anything.
INTERVIEWER
Okay, take a couple of minutes and calm down. You're obviously
frightened about something, and if you can tell us what
it is you're frightened of, we can help you. We can't if
you keep it from us, d'you understand?
JJ
Yeah.
INTERVIEWER
All right, now I can see that this is hard for you love,
all right?
JJ
But I just don't want to lose anyone. They're gonna put
me away.
INTERVIEWER
Who's gonna put you away?
JJ
The police are gonna put me away.
COMMENTATOR
JJ was now saying she visited all her family that afternoon,
and an entire trolly of shoping went too. She was saying
she didn't see the TAYLORS until 7 o clock, more than an
hour after police believe Alison was murdered. Her change
of mind was crucial. Police immediately arrested the sisters.
If Michelle and Lisa weren't with JJ were they the girls
the Doctor said he saw on the steps at Vardens Road at a
quarter to six. Two days after the murder Doctor Michael
UNSWORTH-WHITE had remembered nothing suspicious. Two months
later he recalled seeing two girls running from a house
with a man following behind. The mystery man has never been
found. In ID parades the Doctor couldn't positively identify
the sisters, and at trial the defence questioned seeming
inconsistencies in his evidence, but another witness never
saw anyone running from the scene of the crime next door.
Rosemarie HAYDEN was looking out for her son in a crowd
of children at the crucial time.
ROSMARIE HAYDEN
There was just probably about twenty-four five to eleven
year olds in twos, with three workers, they were just walking
along making a lot of noise as children do. It was about
quarter to six when he arrived home with the other children.
MICHAEL HOLMES (SOLICITOR)
This case is all about timings. It takes about fifteen minutes
to drive from the scene of the murder in Vardens Road, Battersea
to the Churchill Clinic.
COMMENTATOR
No-one disputes the girls were at the Clinic at two minutes
to six. If the Doctor saw them at quarter two, they must
have driven from the murder scene in thirteen minutes. We
tried it three times.
DRIVER
From Vardens Road we're going down the hill, past Clapham
Junction, stopped at the lights. It's busy here, stopped
again, over Vauxhall Cross and past Lambeth Palace and now
we're turning up towards the Churchill.
COMMENTATOR
Our fastest time was fifteen minutes and twenty seconds,
two and a half minutes too long, and that wasn't in the
rush-hour when the murder was carried out. The prosecution
say if Alison was home at the earliest possible time, there
were eight minutes for the girls to trick their way into
the flat and complete the frenzied attack.
ANN TAYLOR
To clean away forensic, clean yourself up, and then leave
the house and then drive back to the Churchill, no, no way.
COMMENTATOR
One witness, Lisa's friend Tessa, adds further doubt to
the timing, she was going to go shopping to Bromley with
the sisters, but at the last moment decided not too. She
says Lisa 'phoned her at 5.30.
TESSA JORDAN
She rang me just before Neighbours and just said that there
was nothing at Bromley, she was at Michelle's and I'd see
her tomorrow, and that was it, and then she rang after Neighbours
as well.
CHRIS JORDAN
It was almost as soon as Neighbours was finished I think,
about five to six, something like that, and she just said
to me "Hello mum" and I said to Tessa "It's
Lisa again" and she took it and that's when she said
I thought I'd 'phone my house, and that was it, that was
the end of the call.
COMMENTATOR
Lisa's calls about her shopping trip coincided with the
time of the murder. After supposedly carrying out this vicious
atack no-one at the Churchill noticed anything strange in
the sisters' behaviour.
ANN TAYLOR
There was several witnesses said they were perfectly normal.
I mean would you be capable of discussing somebody's income
tax with them for half an hour if she's supposed to have
killed somebody. Because that's what Michelle did.
SKY NEWS JULY '92
COMMENTATOR
Michelle stated that JOHN SHAUGHNESSY found his wife's body
first on the landing, he kept muttering her name. Michelle
TAYLOR said she tried to lift her up, she was stiff, she
felt her pulse and realised she was dead. She then ran out
of the house to a local pub crying for help.
ROGER NICHOLS (WITNESS)
The door burst open and a young woman in some distress came
in asking please call the police, ambulance, and then she
kept repeating, "I think she's dead", and we tried
to pacify her and it was quite difficult because she was
almost incoherent but after a while we elected to go with
her to see what exactly she was talking about.
COMMENTATOR
Michelle returned and this time straightened Alison's hair
and stroked her face. The jury heard how she got blood on
her hands and how she went to the bathroom to wash them.
MICHAEL HOLMES
In my view, what an actress, but of course the other side
of the coin is that she is entirely innocent.
COMMENTATOR
But Sky News has interviewed another witness who never appeared
at the trial, Mrs. WRIGHT was too frail to attend. Her crucial
evidence was read to the jury. It describes Alison coming
home much later than 5.37.
MRS. WRIGHT (NEIGHBOUR)
Just after, between six and half past, she used to always
come home about then, and he was home later. I was watching
the news, had my tea, it would be tea time sixish or thereabouts.
COMMENTATOR
And are you sure that she came home after six o clock?
MRS. WRIGHT
Yeah because it was a pattern with her, every night.
COMMENTATOR
Mrs. WRIGHT can still remember what Alison was wearing.
She even recalls the day's news, but the defence say this
witness had little impact because the jury never saw her.
MICHAEL HOLMES
If that lady is to be believed then my clients must be innocent,
because at that time they were seen in the Churchill Clinic.
The tradgedy of this is that that lady holds the key to
this case in her hand.
COMMENTATOR
Early indications were that Alison's killer was probably
a man. Women rarely commit multiple stabbing.
DR. PETER VANEZIS (PATHOLOGIST)
It' s very unusual, most of the, most women seem to produce
a few wounds, relatively fewer than men would tend to produce.
I don't know whether it's because men are more violent,
therefore they are more likely to produce more wounds, we
don't really know the answer to that, it's just a fact that
very very few cases occur where women have produced more
than ten stab wounds in their victim.
COMMENTATOR
At trial forensic experts allowed only two minutes to inflict
the 54 stab wounds.
DR. PETER VANEZIS
I would be surprised if they could do it within fifteen
minutes quite honestly, just straight off. But if, of course,
if they are in a state themselves they could do it quite
quickly, but I would really be surprised under fifteen minutes.
COMMENTATOR
The defence say that Alison may have been killed not In
a crime of passion but by a crazed burglar.
MICHAEL HOLMES
We discovered that jewellery was missing from the dead girl's
home. Where is that jewellery? Never traced to either of
my two clients. What's happened to that jewellery? Was it
stolen, was there actually a burglar there? It's that sort
of thing which is extremely worrying in this case.
COMMENTATOR
The defence only learned of the theft months after the crime,
too late to investigate.
MICHAEL HOLMES
Until that moment we had no idea that jewellery was missing,
maybe even the police didn't know, and in fact it was ourselves
who found this out.
COMMENTATOR
But we can reveal that amongst police statements not used
in the trial was a hidden suspect. Early in 1991 voluntary
social workers became worried about a vagrant they were
helping, in a squat less than a mile from Alison's home.
The man was showing violent tendencies.
GRAHAM GUILLOU (SOCIAL WORKER)
He was very very aggressive and he hated the world on the
last few weeks he was with me.
COMMENTATOR
Two days after Alison's murder the vagrant made an extraordinary
confession to this man's fellow worker.
GRAHAM GUILLOU
Then he came out with a statement saying that he had just
stabbed a young girl. Well my ears pricked up and I was
rather concerned because he seemed the type, with his behaviour
as it was.
COMMENTATOR
The vagrant habitually carried a knife. His regular clothing
had been ditched. The workers were so alarmed that they
called police in a Central London Homeless Unit.
GRAHAM GUILLOU
And we waited outside here because he was still in the building,
and they never turned up.
COMMENTATOR
Police logged three urgent calls. By now the workers had
made a possible connection with Alison's murder.
GRAHAM GUILLOU
So I went back to the office, we made another 'phone call,
and we came back here. We waited a while longer and they
stil haven't turned up. We went inside the building to see
if he was still there, but unfortunately he had disappeared.
COMMENTATOR
The workers say it took a week for the Murder Squad to visit.
The suspect had fled.
GRAHAM GUILLOU
Nobody has seen him since.
COMMENTATOR
Around the time Alison died police reports show a spate
of attacks on women in Battersea. Witness descriptions seem
consistently to match this suspect.
GRAHAM GUILLOU
I mean if I had a list of those descriptions put in front
of me, my first thought would be ------
COMMENTATOR
We can't name the vagrant for legal reasons, but police
never questioned him about the murder.
MICHAEL HOLMES
I am amazed that the police didn't follow this up, and follow
it up immediately because don't forget, on the 5th of June,
two days after the murder, the police really had no idea
at all as to who had committed this murder.
GRAHAM GUILLOU
I mean he could have done it to someone else, as far as
I'm concerned he could have been, he could be still doing
it.
COMMENTATOR
But the detective in charge of the case hasn't changed his
view. On the day the sisteres were convicted he had this
to say.
DS CHRIS BURKE
Two evil young girls who have callously killed a fine lady,
have been found guilty, and justice has been seen to be
completed.
COMMENTATOR
Husband JOHN SHAUGHNESSY is also convinced the right people
were jailed. It's a bitter twist that his mistress was found
guilty of murdering the wife he remembered so lovingly at
the time of her death.
JOHN SHAUGHNESSY
She would not hurt nobody or argue with anyone. She didn't
deserve anything like this.
COMMENTATOR
Lawyers for the TAYLORS hope to place new evidence before
the Courts this week, and say they'll continue to pursue
justice.
MICHAEL HOLMES
There has to be a doubt about that verdict which, quite
frankly, amazed me. The Crown as you know have to prove
their case beyond a reasonable doubt. I never thought that
they had done that. I say that there has to be a doubt in
this case and that doubt should be resolved obviously in
favour of Michelle and Lisa TAYLOR.
ANN TAYLOR
The copper said you must take each individual piece and
put them together to fit like a jigsaw puzzle. No murder
weapon ever found, no forensic on Michelle and Lisa, what
time did Alison return home, man seen following Alison,
two gold bracelets, who else left fingerprints, who was
the man on the steps. You tell me where the jigsaw puzzle
fits 'cos it don't fit. Our girls are innocent, the conviction
will be quashed, but one way or the other the case won't
go away. |
| Contact : bernard.omahoney@bernardomahoney.com |
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