Murder of Teresa de Simone
Encyclopedia
The murder of Teresa de Simone was committed in Southampton
, England, in 1979 and led to one of the longest proven cases of a miscarriage of justice
in British legal history. The murder occurred outside the Tom Tackle pub and was the subject of a three-year police investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sean Hodgson. Over the course of his 15-day trial it was revealed that Hodgson was a pathological liar and had confessed to numerous crimes, including crimes that he could not have committed and crimes that did not appear to have happened. Hodgson was convicted of the murder by a unanimous
jury
verdict in 1982 and was sentenced to life imprisonment
.Paragraph 2 After serving 27 years in prison he was exonerated and released in March 2009. DNA analysis of semen
samples which had been preserved from the original crime scene showed that they could not have come from him.Paragraph 6
As a result of Hodgson's appeal Operation Iceberg was created by the Criminal Cases Review Commission
(CCRC) with the aim of using DNA
evidence in pre-1990 rape
or murder
cases. This led to the review of 240 other convictions. The CCRC also requested that the Crown Prosecution Service
identify and review similar murder cases from the time before DNA testing was available. In September 2009, on the basis of DNA evidence from his exhumed body, police named David Lace as the likely killer. Lace, who was 17 at the time of the murder, had confessed to police in 1983 that he had raped and killed de Simone but officers refused to believe him. Lace committed suicide in December 1988.
(now called The Encore public house) in Commercial Road, Southampton.Paragraph 7 By day she was employed as a full-time clerk for the Southern Gas Board
. She had been employed at the pub for less than a month, working two evenings each week, partly to widen her social circle and partly to supplement her income to pay for the Ford Escort car that she bought three months previously. The pub was located centrally in the city, only 50 yards (46 meters) from the police station
and law courts, and near the city's central train station
and the Gaumont Theatre (now The Mayflower
). When her shift at the Tom Tackle ended at 23:00 she went on to a night club in nearby London Road, in the company of her friend Jenni Savage. Although the discothèque was a relatively short distance from the public house, they travelled in Savage's car, leaving de Simone's Ford Escort in the pub car park.
While at the discothèque de Simone and Savage were together throughout the evening, and de Simone did not consume any alcoholic drinks. They left the night club together, and Savage drove de Simone back to the Tom Tackle car park, arriving sometime between 00:30 and 01:00 on 5 December. Savage testified that she drove into the covered parking area and that they sat chatting for a while before de Simone made the short walk to her car, at which point Savage reversed out and drove away from the scene. Savage was the last witness to see de Simone before she was killed.
When de Simone's mother, Mary Sedotti, discovered she had not returned home by the morning, she expressed concern and her husband Michael, Teresa's stepfather, drove to the pub where he observed de Simone's car still parked, but did not make any closer investigation. Shortly after 10:00 Anthony Pocock, the landlord of the Tom Tackle, was expecting a commercial delivery to the premises, and believing de Simone had deliberately left the car overnight he decided to try to move it to allow the delivery through.Paragraph 9 Inside he discovered de Simone's partially clothed body on the back seat of the vehicle. He immediately called the police.
The pathologist determined, based on the presence of "white frothy mucous" in the victim's mouth,Paragraph 10 that the cause of death was a "long, slow strangulation". Visible on de Simone's neck were "a series of multiple, roughly horizontal, linear, bruised abrasions on the front of the neck [which] matched the description of a [gold chain and crucifix] which the deceased had been said to be wearing that evening" indicating the possibility that this was used as the ligature and lead to the tabloid press dubbing the murderer the "Crucifix Killer". The chain was not present when the body was discovered and has never been recovered.Paragraph 11
Semen was present in the vaginal canal
, "in sufficient concentration to indicate that it had been present no more than three to four hours before death.” As de Simone's movements for the entire evening previous to her death were known and documented, the semen could only have come from her assailant. Evidence of bruising and tearing of the genitalia demonstrated that the intercourse was non-consensual. A number of vaginal, anal, oral and control
swabs
were taken by the pathologist, and subsequent forensic examination demonstrated that the semen was produced by a male with the blood type
"A" or "AB". Further swabs were taken from de Simone's clothing and the car.
The victim's leather handbag and personal belongings, including a diary, were found in multiple locations within the vicinity of the crime scene, although her car keys, Rotary wristwatch
, two necklaces, three rings and a bracelet have never been recovered.
(C.I.D.) In the 12 months after the murder, police "interviewed 30,000 people, took 2,500 statements and traced 500 people who were in the area on the night of the murder. At one point the list of possible suspects totalled 300 men." Despite de Simone's possessions being taken, police did not believe that robbery had been the motive, were convinced that this was a red herring and that she was the victim of a "vicious rape by a brutal and merciless killer". Police received two anonymous letters, postmarked 12 December and 27 December in Southampton which gave information regarding the location of the killer. The writer was never identified, and the eventual arrest of Hodgson led police to dismiss them as a hoax
at the time of Hodgson's trial. Nine months after the murder, while Hodgson was already in custody for an unrelated offence,Paragraph 15 two anonymous telephone calls were made to the police in which the caller confessed to killing de Simone. Porter released a statement to the Southern Daily Echo
at the time in which he said: "The calls came from a man who said that he had committed the murder. He gave the impression that he was under severe strain and was asking for help and advice. From the nature of his conversation we think there is a possibility that the calls could be genuine."
, County Durham
) first came to the attention of the police on 6 December 1979 when he was arrested in Southampton for an unrelated offence of theft
from a vehicle,Paragraph 13 having arrived in the city two days previously. On 7 December he gave a statement to the police implicating another individual in the murder of de Simone, but police were able to eliminate this suspect from their enquiries as he was of blood type "O".Paragraph 14 On 9 December Hodgson was charged in relation to the theft and remanded in custody. He was interviewed by detectives on several occasions about de Simone’s murder, however as his whereabouts at the time of the murder could not be verified, and police knew he was of blood type "A", he was briefly investigated.
Hodgson grew up surrounded by a large family, and had been placed in a borstal
aged 11. He was, nevertheless, described by one schoolmate as a "normal teenager", whose arrest shocked his home community. Prior to his arrest "[Hodgson] had numerous previous convictions for offences of dishonesty and deception, as well as many related to offences involving motor vehicles. There was one conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse and another for being in possession of an offensive weapon. There were however no convictions for offences of violence. There is no doubt that even at that stage he was a disturbed personality, with a history of significant self-harming. We now know, and would admit in evidence, that he attended a clinic in 1978 after several incidents of overdosing. He was assessed as having "a severe personality disorder" and he was a "compulsive liar"."Paragraph 12 On 16 May 1980 he pleaded guilty at Southampton to theft and was granted conditional bail awaiting sentence. He was arrested again in London
on 4 June and charged with further offences. On 14 July 1980 he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. During this trial he confessed to "a large number of relatively minor offences" although he could not have committed all of them and some had actually been perpetrated during the period that he had been held in custody.
On 11 December 1980 Hodgson asked to see a priest, Father Frank Moran, to whom he confessed that he was having nightmares and the face of a woman he had killed "kept coming back to him."Paragraph 18 He said that the murder had happened in Southampton the previous year and "that he was particularly troubled because this was around the anniversary of her death.” He repeated the confession to a prison officer the following day,Paragraph 19 and subsequently wrote a note which stated: “After much deliberation and thought and confession with the priest here in Wandsworth
, after all the trouble I have caused, not only to you, the police, but myself, the mental torture I have gone through, the family of the person concerned, I must for my own sanity and the punishment I will receive for this horrible crime, I wish now that it was me that was dead and not the person I killed at the Tom Tackle pub. ... I did the murder, why I don't know. So all I can say is let justice be done".Paragraph 20
Over the next two weeks, Hodgson gave more confessions and was also escorted to Southampton where he showed the investigating officers where he had disposed of some of de Simone's property.Paragraph 24 It was not routine to make audio recordings
of police interviews at the time, and much of the original police paperwork from the case has not been located . What is known, however, is that the statements taken from Hodgson by the police at that time contained "detail [which] could only have been known to the man who was responsible for the crime" or the investigating officers.Paragraph 17 Although the murder had received wide media coverage, the police had not revealed all of the significant details.Paragraph 36 At Hodgson's subsequent murder trial these were described as the "secret details".Paragraph 37 It was never investigated whether any of the officers taking Hodgson's statements had in fact disclosed any of these secret details to him when they interviewed him.
On 25 December, Hodgson wrote a further confession, claiming to have killed a man in Covent Garden
, London, and on 27 December confessed that he had "also murdered a homosexual in a flat in North London at the end of '78 or '79". Investigations showed that the confessions were false and neither of the crimes had actually happened.Paragraph 28
in 1982. During the course of the 15-day trial, Hodgson chose not to give evidence or submit to cross examination.
For the defence, Robin Grey QC
, explained to the jury that such was the extent of Hodgson's compulsive lying that he had confessed to 200 different crimes, including murders that had not happened. The Crown
's case against Hodgson was that he "under the influence of drink, broke into the deceased’s car, intending to steal it, but then fell asleep on the back seat. When the deceased returned to her car she put her handbag onto the back seat and brushed against [him]. He seized her by the back of her jumper, twisted it and strangled her, and when she was dead or dying he raped her, removing her underwear and tights with such force that one leg of the tights was torn from the other. Thereafter he made away from the scene after taking various items from the deceased.”Paragraph 8 Hodgson's confessions were a significant part of the case against him. The jury retired to consider their verdict at 11:00 on 5 February 1982, and their unanimous guilty verdict was returned at 14:15 the same day.
The judge, Mr. Justice Sheldon, told Hodgson: "It is a verdict with which I entirely agree. I have no doubt whatsoever that you were guilty of this appalling, horrible crime of killing that girl."
s then acting on behalf of the appellant to the Forensic Science Service
to discover whether the relevant exhibits associated with the murder were available. Presumably that request would have been made in order to see whether further testing might then be possible. The inquiry failed. The response from the Forensic Science Service, as we are told today, was that none of the exhibits had been retained."Paragraph 41 Hodgson, who was at that time in the prison hospital, became more seriously ill, his solicitor was unable to take further instructions, and the line of inquiry was closed.
Hodgson continued to maintain his innocence; convicted murderers sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment in the United Kingdom have their cases reviewed by the Parole Board
before the end of the minimum fixed term, averaging 14 years. However continually professing innocence "[is] a good indicator of continuing risk" leading them to be ineligible for parole
.
In March 2008, Hodgson responded to an advertisement in Inside Time
, a monthly newspaper for prisoners, placed by Mayfair-based
solicitors Julian Young and Co. who specialised in appeals against conviction. The solicitors took on Hodgson's case, and Rag Chand spent four months attempting to track down the swab samples which the FSS claimed had been destroyed at least 10 years previously.
As the police claimed that there were no surviving papers in the case, and the senior investigating officers had since died, Chand relied largely upon newspaper cuttings to piece together what had happened. Chand, who acted pro bono for Hodgson, said of his investigation: "The search was the most difficult thing I have encountered in my personal and professional life. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. I spent months chasing false leads and implacable bureaucracy but I was not prepared to accept this, as instinct told me that the samples would be somewhere. I persevered because I had a gut feeling that something was wrong." Eventually, Chand's probing led to the rediscovery of an archive of evidence on an industrial estate in the Midlands
"which they appeared to have forgotten about". Stored here were all of the swabs taken by the pathologist in December 1979. In December 2008 the Crown Prosecution Service
(CPS) notified Julian Young of the initial results of the DNA analysis, and on 30 January 2009 it was confirmed that the semen detected on the vaginal and the anal swabs could not have originated from Hodgson.Paragraph 43
The case was then referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission
, which was informed on 26 February 2009 by the Special Crime Division of the CPS that the Crown would not oppose the appeal. The case then went to the Court of Appeal, where, in light of the new DNA evidence available, Hodgson's conviction was quashed. The judgement, which was delivered by Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
, on 18 March 2009 concluded: “The decision leaves some important, unanswered questions. Perhaps the most important is that we do not know who raped and killed the dead girl. We can but hope for the sake of the appellant and the family of the murdered girl that her killer may yet be identified and brought to justice. But for now all we can do is to quash the conviction. It is accordingly quashed. The appellant will be discharged. There will be no new trial.”Paragraph 45
Accompanied by his brother Peter, Hodgson walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice
a free and innocent man after 27 years of wrongful imprisonment. Hodgson's barrister at the 1982 trial, Robin Grey QC, was there to shake his hand as he was released. Grey said: "As a human being I feel glad that we no longer have capital punishment
. As a defence barrister I didn't get him off, and I have bitter feelings of guilt about that."
Hodgson is Britain’s longest serving inmate known to be innocent. He may be eligible for up to £1 million in compensation, although this could increase if a plan to sue the FSS goes ahead. A fund was opened and an interim compensation payment of £250,000 paid into it after two MPs intervened to cut through administrative 'red tape
'. The fund is protected by law to shield Hodgson from "gold diggers". As a result of his imprisonment Hodgson suffers from schizophrenia
and depression and, whilst imprisoned, his identity was stolen
making it difficult to access insurance and housing.
In December 2010 Hodgson was returned to prison awaiting trial over new and unconnected allegations of rape and sexual assault of a 22-year-old woman with learning difficulties
at a care home in Bishop Auckland
, County Durham
, in August 2010. On 3 March 2011, Hodgson pleaded guilty at Durham Crown Court to sexual touching but denied rape. David Crook, prosecuting, said that he would offer no evidence on the rape charge, which was withdrawn. Hodgson's solicitor, Julian Young, said: "The wrongful imprisonment for 27 years of my client has had a devastating effect on his life since he was cleared of the murder he did not commit [and he] has been gripped by a number of personal difficulties, including a degree of alcohol abuse
." The judge, Mr Justice Prince requested the preparation of pre-sentence reports to address the issue of Hodgson's dangerousness, and Hodgson was remanded in custody. On 13 May 2011 he was sentenced to a three-year community order. The judge said that the total of 156 days Hodgson had been remanded in custody prior to sentence would be taken into account, and told Hodgson he "could walk free should he agree to complete a psychiatric order imposed by the court, but his barrister Martin Heslop QC, said his client 'clearly bears a great resentment against a criminal justice system which has deprived him of 27 years of liberty'" and rejected the option.
evidence led police to re-open the case, codenamed Operation Iceberg. On 25 March 2009 Detective Chief Inspector Phil McTavish, heading the investigation, announced that the DNA profile had been checked against the United Kingdom National DNA Database but no matches had been found. He said "A number of key witnesses have already been located, interviewed and are assisting the investigation. All persons screened to date have been eliminated against the DNA profile. We will screen as many people as we consider necessary." On 11 August 2009 McTavish released a statement that a prime suspect had been identified. "While work is ongoing to maximise DNA evidence, the inquiry team is confident they are on the right track and hopefully could be close to solving this 30 year old murder" he said.
The suspect (later identified as David Lace) was discovered when the profile of the killer showed a partial match on the national database, which belonged to a sibling of a previous suspect. A further sample was taken from another sibling, who was not on the database, to help confirm the match via the process called familial searching. At first the police refused to release the identity of the new prime suspect, except to reveal that he had committed suicide
in 1988, and had confessed to de Simone's murder while in custody for an unrelated crime in 1983, 18 months after Hodgson's conviction. His body was exhumed at Kingston cemetery in Portsmouth
on 12 August 2009 in order to compare his DNA to that found at the crime scene. Hampshire Constabulary
said the breakthrough in the case was only possible because of advances in forensic science and tests on the body would take six weeks, after which a file on the dead suspect could then be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. Visitors to the cemetery in Portsmouth said the grave of the suspect had no headstone
and was untended. Police revealed that the suspect's confession was one of seven which had been made since Hodgson's conviction.
Hodgson's lawyer, Julian Young, said the confessions had been vital information which could have freed his client much earlier and he was shocked police had not acted on it or passed it on. "If it is true these confessions were not followed up by police or passed on to Mr Hodgson's legal team then, or to me as part of the appeal, it is surprising and very disappointing. This may raise serious questions about the way in which the police operated and their failure or unwillingness to disclose evidence. I did not know seven people made admissions. It would have been highly relevant evidence."
) had spent a significant amount of his life in care or boy's homes and hostels and was considered a loner with an aggressive temper. He changed his surname when he was adopted by the Lace family as a child.
He received his first criminal conviction in November 1977, aged 15, for burglary. Between 1977 and 1984, he accrued six more convictions and was sentenced to a care order until the age of 18 for robbery in August 1978. In January 1980 he was convicted of two further crimes including theft of property from his lodgings the night before de Simone's murder. He was subsequently convicted of a series of burglaries committed in Portsmouth for which he received an 18-month custodial sentence of which he served 9 months. Following his release he committed robbery again and was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to five years and nine months imprisonment, which he served at HMP Dartmoor.
Lace was released from Dartmoor in July 1987 and settled in nearby Brixham
, Devon
, returning to visit family in Portsmouth in 1988. He intimated that he was depressed about his past actions and in December 1988 gave away his possessions and resigned from his job. He was last seen by friends between 7–8 December and was found dead by his landlord on 9 December. Postmortem examination revealed superficial wounds to his wrist, ingestion of analgesics and a plastic bag over his head. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation and his death was determined as suicide by the coroner. Lace was buried in Kingston Cemetery, Portsmouth on 20 December 1988. After a cross check on the DNA database found that the DNA from the murder scene showed a partial match with that of a relative of Lace, detectives requested a sample from Andrina Foster, Lace's biological sister, which gave a familial match with the murderer's DNA. As a result of this development, Lace's body was exhumed on 12 August 2009 for DNA testing as part of Operation Iceberg.
On 17 September 2009 DCI McTavish confirmed that the comparison of the DNA from the exhumed suspect's body and the DNA evidence from the crime scene presented "a complete match" and belonged to David Andrew Lace. "The evidence overwhelmingly bears out [Lace’s] involvement in the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone and we are not seeking anyone else in relation to this matter."
The Crown Prosecutor
for Hampshire & Isle of Wight stated "the evidence would have been sufficient to prosecute David Lace, if he were alive, with the offences of the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone. But this is in no sense a declaration that he was guilty of the offences. Had Mr Lace lived, our decision would merely have authorised the police to begin the legal process by charging him. Only after trial does a jury decide whether a person is guilty or not, on a higher standard of proof – beyond reasonable doubt."
where he had been living and then walked to Southampton. He was present at the rear of the Tom Tackle pub when de Simone was dropped off by Savage, and then approached de Simone when she got into her own vehicle. He first knocked on the window and asked the time but then forced his way into the driver's seat beside her and locked the doors to prevent her escaping. Once inside he sexually assaulted her and strangled her using the passenger seatbelt in the car. He then took her handbag and jewellery, and hid for approximately 10 minutes before heading to Southampton Central station and catching a train back to Portsmouth.
Because he wrongly described significant evidence (including the car and de Simone's clothes) police dismissed his statement, which was filed along with six other confessions to the crime. Hodgson's legal team was never made aware of its existence.
officers with specialist training in forensic
search techniques spent two days examining the area in an attempt to recover the jewellery. Although the ground had been the subject of extensive redevelopment in previous years and recovery of the items was considered unlikely, detectives authorised the operation to ensure every attempt had been made to find and return them to her parents. None of the items were discovered. DCI McTavish said of the search: "It is recognised that in the years since Teresa’s murder there has been a lot of disturbance and redevelopment around the railway track, but there was still a possibility that items may have lain undisturbed. Although we have not been able to recover any items linked to either Teresa or the suspect it was important we did everything to explore this final aspect of the case."
(IPCC) on 16 September 2009 to determine whether there was evidence of misconduct or negligence by the police during the original murder investigation, the handling of Lace’s confession in 1983 and the request from Hodgson’s solicitors in 1998 for forensic examination of exhibits. The head of Southampton CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Shirley Dinnell, stated that the referral was voluntarily made by Hampshire Constabulary because of the miscarriage of justice that had taken place and to ensure transparency of inquiries.
On 28 October 2009 Mike Franklin, the IPCC commissioner for the south east, announced that as a result of the assessment no further investigation of the police's actions would be undertaken as many of the senior investigating officers were now deceased, and any new investigation "would serve no purpose in identifying areas of discipline or learning opportunities due to the passage of time." As a result of the case, however, the IPCC implemented procedural changes to ensure all exhibits relating to a case would now be kept until a convicted person had completed their sentence.
payments.
Gerry Conlon, who was wrongly imprisoned for 15 years, also warns that after-release support is inadequate. After the imposed routine of prison life, outside prison “you are lost.” Suicidal thoughts and attempts, panic attacks, nightmares and drug use are common. "Most people released after miscarriages of justice end up as recluses, their marriages fail, they aren't talking to their children, they become drug addicts and alcoholics, they die premature deaths."
Hodgson's release has sparked debate about the use of the death penalty, particularly about its fallibility. Neil Durkin of Amnesty International
commented in a piece for The Daily Telegraph
: "we had the deeply sad case of Sean Hodgson, the man from Hampshire who ended up being bars for 27 years, not least because the prosecution service suppressed exculpatory DNA evidence that could have set him free a decade earlier. He was totally innocent, should never have been imprisoned in the first place and on release joins the ranks of those – eventually – rescued from their judicial fate". Durkin characterized the Hodgson case as "a warning not to trust a justice system never to be wrong".
Southampton
Southampton is the largest city in the county of Hampshire on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
, England, in 1979 and led to one of the longest proven cases of a miscarriage of justice
Miscarriage of justice
A miscarriage of justice primarily is the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. The term can also apply to errors in the other direction—"errors of impunity", and to civil cases. Most criminal justice systems have some means to overturn, or "quash", a wrongful...
in British legal history. The murder occurred outside the Tom Tackle pub and was the subject of a three-year police investigation which resulted in the arrest of Sean Hodgson. Over the course of his 15-day trial it was revealed that Hodgson was a pathological liar and had confessed to numerous crimes, including crimes that he could not have committed and crimes that did not appear to have happened. Hodgson was convicted of the murder by a unanimous
Unanimity
Unanimity is agreement by all people in a given situation. When unanimous, everybody is of the same mind and acting together as one. Though unlike uniformity, it does not constitute absolute agreement. Many groups consider unanimous decisions a sign of agreement, solidarity, and unity...
jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
verdict in 1982 and was sentenced to life imprisonment
Life imprisonment
Life imprisonment is a sentence of imprisonment for a serious crime under which the convicted person is to remain in jail for the rest of his or her life...
.Paragraph 2 After serving 27 years in prison he was exonerated and released in March 2009. DNA analysis of semen
Semen
Semen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that may contain spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
samples which had been preserved from the original crime scene showed that they could not have come from him.Paragraph 6
As a result of Hodgson's appeal Operation Iceberg was created by the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Criminal Cases Review Commission
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is an non-departmental public body set up following the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice itself a continuation of the May Inquiry. It aims to investigate possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
(CCRC) with the aim of using DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
evidence in pre-1990 rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
or murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
cases. This led to the review of 240 other convictions. The CCRC also requested that the Crown Prosecution Service
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...
identify and review similar murder cases from the time before DNA testing was available. In September 2009, on the basis of DNA evidence from his exhumed body, police named David Lace as the likely killer. Lace, who was 17 at the time of the murder, had confessed to police in 1983 that he had raped and killed de Simone but officers refused to believe him. Lace committed suicide in December 1988.
Murder
On the evening of 4 December 1979, 22-year-old Teresa Elena de Simone had been working as a part-time barmaid in the Tom Tackle public housePublic house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
(now called The Encore public house) in Commercial Road, Southampton.Paragraph 7 By day she was employed as a full-time clerk for the Southern Gas Board
British Gas plc
British Gas plc was formerly the monopoly gas supplier and is a private sector in the United Kingdom.- History :In the early 1900s the gas market in the United Kingdom was mainly run by county councils and small private firms...
. She had been employed at the pub for less than a month, working two evenings each week, partly to widen her social circle and partly to supplement her income to pay for the Ford Escort car that she bought three months previously. The pub was located centrally in the city, only 50 yards (46 meters) from the police station
Police station
A police station or station house is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.- Facilities...
and law courts, and near the city's central train station
Southampton Central railway station
Southampton Central railway station is a main line railway station serving the city of Southampton in Hampshire, southern England. It is on the Wessex Main Line, the South Western Main Line and the West Coastway Line...
and the Gaumont Theatre (now The Mayflower
Mayflower Theatre
The Mayflower is a Grade II listed theatre, in the city centre of Southampton, United Kingdom, with a capacity of 2,300. It features West End theatre shows when they tour the UK. The theatre opened on the 22 December 1928, as The Empire Theatre, part of the Moss Empire theatre group...
). When her shift at the Tom Tackle ended at 23:00 she went on to a night club in nearby London Road, in the company of her friend Jenni Savage. Although the discothèque was a relatively short distance from the public house, they travelled in Savage's car, leaving de Simone's Ford Escort in the pub car park.
While at the discothèque de Simone and Savage were together throughout the evening, and de Simone did not consume any alcoholic drinks. They left the night club together, and Savage drove de Simone back to the Tom Tackle car park, arriving sometime between 00:30 and 01:00 on 5 December. Savage testified that she drove into the covered parking area and that they sat chatting for a while before de Simone made the short walk to her car, at which point Savage reversed out and drove away from the scene. Savage was the last witness to see de Simone before she was killed.
When de Simone's mother, Mary Sedotti, discovered she had not returned home by the morning, she expressed concern and her husband Michael, Teresa's stepfather, drove to the pub where he observed de Simone's car still parked, but did not make any closer investigation. Shortly after 10:00 Anthony Pocock, the landlord of the Tom Tackle, was expecting a commercial delivery to the premises, and believing de Simone had deliberately left the car overnight he decided to try to move it to allow the delivery through.Paragraph 9 Inside he discovered de Simone's partially clothed body on the back seat of the vehicle. He immediately called the police.
Forensic investigation
The pathologist arrived at the scene at 11:45. His report of the crime scene described "the deceased lying on her back, with her leg bent at the thigh and knee, with the knee resting against the back of the seat, and the left thigh running along the edge of the seat with the leg hanging over the edge. The body was naked from the waist down and her left breast was exposed. Part of a pair of tights was pulled down to the left ankle. The remainder of her underwear and the other part of her tights was found in the passenger well." The time of death was placed at between 01:00 and 02:00 5 December. In a statement issued at the time, Detective Superintendent John Porter said: "It is 99% certain that the girl was murdered, attacked, chatted to or met by her killer in a matter of seconds after Jenni Savage left her. He could have been waiting, and seen Jenni leave. It is possible that he was actually sitting in Teresa's car, as we found the nearside [passenger] door unlocked."The pathologist determined, based on the presence of "white frothy mucous" in the victim's mouth,Paragraph 10 that the cause of death was a "long, slow strangulation". Visible on de Simone's neck were "a series of multiple, roughly horizontal, linear, bruised abrasions on the front of the neck [which] matched the description of a [gold chain and crucifix] which the deceased had been said to be wearing that evening" indicating the possibility that this was used as the ligature and lead to the tabloid press dubbing the murderer the "Crucifix Killer". The chain was not present when the body was discovered and has never been recovered.Paragraph 11
Semen was present in the vaginal canal
Vagina
The vagina is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female placental mammals and marsupials, or to the cloaca in female birds, monotremes, and some reptiles. Female insects and other invertebrates also have a vagina, which is the terminal part of the...
, "in sufficient concentration to indicate that it had been present no more than three to four hours before death.” As de Simone's movements for the entire evening previous to her death were known and documented, the semen could only have come from her assailant. Evidence of bruising and tearing of the genitalia demonstrated that the intercourse was non-consensual. A number of vaginal, anal, oral and control
Scientific control
Scientific control allows for comparisons of concepts. It is a part of the scientific method. Scientific control is often used in discussion of natural experiments. For instance, during drug testing, scientists will try to control two groups to keep them as identical and normal as possible, then...
swabs
Cotton swab
Cotton swabs or cotton buds or ear buds consist of a small wad of cotton wrapped around one or both ends of a short rod, usually made of either wood, rolled paper, or plastic...
were taken by the pathologist, and subsequent forensic examination demonstrated that the semen was produced by a male with the blood type
ABO blood group system
The ABO blood group system is the most important blood type system in human blood transfusion. The associated anti-A antibodies and anti-B antibodies are usually IgM antibodies, which are usually produced in the first years of life by sensitization to environmental substances such as food,...
"A" or "AB". Further swabs were taken from de Simone's clothing and the car.
The victim's leather handbag and personal belongings, including a diary, were found in multiple locations within the vicinity of the crime scene, although her car keys, Rotary wristwatch
Rotary Watches
Rotary Watches Ltd was established at La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland by Moise Dreyfuss in 1895. By the 1920s family members Georges and Sylvain Dreyfuss began importing Rotary watches to Britain, which was to become the company's most successful market...
, two necklaces, three rings and a bracelet have never been recovered.
Suspects
The investigation was headed by Detective Superintendent John Porter of Southampton Criminal Investigation DepartmentCriminal Investigation Department
The Crime Investigation Department is the branch of all Territorial police forces within the British Police and many other Commonwealth police forces, to which plain clothes detectives belong. It is thus distinct from the Uniformed Branch and the Special Branch.The Metropolitan Police Service CID,...
(C.I.D.) In the 12 months after the murder, police "interviewed 30,000 people, took 2,500 statements and traced 500 people who were in the area on the night of the murder. At one point the list of possible suspects totalled 300 men." Despite de Simone's possessions being taken, police did not believe that robbery had been the motive, were convinced that this was a red herring and that she was the victim of a "vicious rape by a brutal and merciless killer". Police received two anonymous letters, postmarked 12 December and 27 December in Southampton which gave information regarding the location of the killer. The writer was never identified, and the eventual arrest of Hodgson led police to dismiss them as a hoax
Hoax
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, or rumors, urban legends, pseudosciences or April Fools' Day events that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes.-Definition:The British...
at the time of Hodgson's trial. Nine months after the murder, while Hodgson was already in custody for an unrelated offence,Paragraph 15 two anonymous telephone calls were made to the police in which the caller confessed to killing de Simone. Porter released a statement to the Southern Daily Echo
Southern Daily Echo
The Southern Daily Echo, commonly known as the Daily Echo or simply The Echo, is a local newspaper that covers the area of south-central Hampshire, England, including the city of Southampton...
at the time in which he said: "The calls came from a man who said that he had committed the murder. He gave the impression that he was under severe strain and was asking for help and advice. From the nature of his conversation we think there is a possibility that the calls could be genuine."
Arrest of Sean Hodgson
Sean Hodgson (also known as Robert Graham Hodgson, originally from Tow LawTow Law
Tow Law is a town and civil parish in County Durham, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,952. It is situated a few miles to the south of Consett. Tow Law Town football team are based in the town. The town constituted an urban district from 1894 until 1974...
, County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
) first came to the attention of the police on 6 December 1979 when he was arrested in Southampton for an unrelated offence of theft
Theft
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent. The word is also used as an informal shorthand term for some crimes against property, such as burglary, embezzlement, larceny, looting, robbery, shoplifting and fraud...
from a vehicle,Paragraph 13 having arrived in the city two days previously. On 7 December he gave a statement to the police implicating another individual in the murder of de Simone, but police were able to eliminate this suspect from their enquiries as he was of blood type "O".Paragraph 14 On 9 December Hodgson was charged in relation to the theft and remanded in custody. He was interviewed by detectives on several occasions about de Simone’s murder, however as his whereabouts at the time of the murder could not be verified, and police knew he was of blood type "A", he was briefly investigated.
Hodgson grew up surrounded by a large family, and had been placed in a borstal
Borstal
A borstal was a type of youth prison in the United Kingdom, run by the Prison Service and intended to reform seriously delinquent young people. The word is sometimes used loosely to apply to other kinds of youth institution or reformatory, such as Approved Schools and Detention Centres. The court...
aged 11. He was, nevertheless, described by one schoolmate as a "normal teenager", whose arrest shocked his home community. Prior to his arrest "[Hodgson] had numerous previous convictions for offences of dishonesty and deception, as well as many related to offences involving motor vehicles. There was one conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse and another for being in possession of an offensive weapon. There were however no convictions for offences of violence. There is no doubt that even at that stage he was a disturbed personality, with a history of significant self-harming. We now know, and would admit in evidence, that he attended a clinic in 1978 after several incidents of overdosing. He was assessed as having "a severe personality disorder" and he was a "compulsive liar"."Paragraph 12 On 16 May 1980 he pleaded guilty at Southampton to theft and was granted conditional bail awaiting sentence. He was arrested again in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on 4 June and charged with further offences. On 14 July 1980 he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. During this trial he confessed to "a large number of relatively minor offences" although he could not have committed all of them and some had actually been perpetrated during the period that he had been held in custody.
On 11 December 1980 Hodgson asked to see a priest, Father Frank Moran, to whom he confessed that he was having nightmares and the face of a woman he had killed "kept coming back to him."Paragraph 18 He said that the murder had happened in Southampton the previous year and "that he was particularly troubled because this was around the anniversary of her death.” He repeated the confession to a prison officer the following day,Paragraph 19 and subsequently wrote a note which stated: “After much deliberation and thought and confession with the priest here in Wandsworth
Wandsworth (HM Prison)
HM Prison Wandsworth is a Category B men's prison at Wandsworth in the London Borough of Wandsworth, south west London, England. It is operated by Her Majesty's Prison Service and is the largest prison in London and one of the largest in western Europe, with similar capacity to Liverpool...
, after all the trouble I have caused, not only to you, the police, but myself, the mental torture I have gone through, the family of the person concerned, I must for my own sanity and the punishment I will receive for this horrible crime, I wish now that it was me that was dead and not the person I killed at the Tom Tackle pub. ... I did the murder, why I don't know. So all I can say is let justice be done".Paragraph 20
Over the next two weeks, Hodgson gave more confessions and was also escorted to Southampton where he showed the investigating officers where he had disposed of some of de Simone's property.Paragraph 24 It was not routine to make audio recordings
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
of police interviews at the time, and much of the original police paperwork from the case has not been located . What is known, however, is that the statements taken from Hodgson by the police at that time contained "detail [which] could only have been known to the man who was responsible for the crime" or the investigating officers.Paragraph 17 Although the murder had received wide media coverage, the police had not revealed all of the significant details.Paragraph 36 At Hodgson's subsequent murder trial these were described as the "secret details".Paragraph 37 It was never investigated whether any of the officers taking Hodgson's statements had in fact disclosed any of these secret details to him when they interviewed him.
On 25 December, Hodgson wrote a further confession, claiming to have killed a man in Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, London, and on 27 December confessed that he had "also murdered a homosexual in a flat in North London at the end of '78 or '79". Investigations showed that the confessions were false and neither of the crimes had actually happened.Paragraph 28
Hodgson trial
Hodgson was tried for the murder of Teresa de Simone at Winchester Crown CourtWinchester Crown Court
Winchester Crown Court is a law court in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It is owned and operated by HMCS. The most high profile case to be heard there was the Rose West murder trial in 1995....
in 1982. During the course of the 15-day trial, Hodgson chose not to give evidence or submit to cross examination.
For the defence, Robin Grey QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
, explained to the jury that such was the extent of Hodgson's compulsive lying that he had confessed to 200 different crimes, including murders that had not happened. The Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
's case against Hodgson was that he "under the influence of drink, broke into the deceased’s car, intending to steal it, but then fell asleep on the back seat. When the deceased returned to her car she put her handbag onto the back seat and brushed against [him]. He seized her by the back of her jumper, twisted it and strangled her, and when she was dead or dying he raped her, removing her underwear and tights with such force that one leg of the tights was torn from the other. Thereafter he made away from the scene after taking various items from the deceased.”Paragraph 8 Hodgson's confessions were a significant part of the case against him. The jury retired to consider their verdict at 11:00 on 5 February 1982, and their unanimous guilty verdict was returned at 14:15 the same day.
The judge, Mr. Justice Sheldon, told Hodgson: "It is a verdict with which I entirely agree. I have no doubt whatsoever that you were guilty of this appalling, horrible crime of killing that girl."
Appeals
Hodgson appealed the conviction, but his pre-trial confessions, his knowledge of the "secret details" and his refusal to take the stand during the trial led to the application for leave to appeal being refused:Paragraph 39 and Paragraph 40 "[I]n 1998 an inquiry was made by solicitorSolicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
s then acting on behalf of the appellant to the Forensic Science Service
Forensic Science Service
The Forensic Science Service is a government-owned company in the United Kingdom which provides forensic science services to the police forces and government agencies of England and Wales, as well as other countries.-History:...
to discover whether the relevant exhibits associated with the murder were available. Presumably that request would have been made in order to see whether further testing might then be possible. The inquiry failed. The response from the Forensic Science Service, as we are told today, was that none of the exhibits had been retained."Paragraph 41 Hodgson, who was at that time in the prison hospital, became more seriously ill, his solicitor was unable to take further instructions, and the line of inquiry was closed.
Hodgson continued to maintain his innocence; convicted murderers sentenced to mandatory life imprisonment in the United Kingdom have their cases reviewed by the Parole Board
Parole Board for England and Wales
The Parole Board for England and Wales was established in 1968 under the Criminal Justice Act of 1967. It became an independent executive non-departmental public body on 1 July 1996 under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Parole Board's role is to make risk assessments about...
before the end of the minimum fixed term, averaging 14 years. However continually professing innocence "[is] a good indicator of continuing risk" leading them to be ineligible for parole
Parole
Parole may have different meanings depending on the field and judiciary system. All of the meanings originated from the French parole . Following its use in late-resurrected Anglo-French chivalric practice, the term became associated with the release of prisoners based on prisoners giving their...
.
In March 2008, Hodgson responded to an advertisement in Inside Time
Inside Time
Inside Time is the only 'not for profit' national newspapers for prisoners distributed through the UK prison estate. It was launched by the New Bridge, the national charity for prisoners, in 1990 as an eight page quarterly newspaper to provide a voice for prisoners to express their views and...
, a monthly newspaper for prisoners, placed by Mayfair-based
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
solicitors Julian Young and Co. who specialised in appeals against conviction. The solicitors took on Hodgson's case, and Rag Chand spent four months attempting to track down the swab samples which the FSS claimed had been destroyed at least 10 years previously.
As the police claimed that there were no surviving papers in the case, and the senior investigating officers had since died, Chand relied largely upon newspaper cuttings to piece together what had happened. Chand, who acted pro bono for Hodgson, said of his investigation: "The search was the most difficult thing I have encountered in my personal and professional life. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. I spent months chasing false leads and implacable bureaucracy but I was not prepared to accept this, as instinct told me that the samples would be somewhere. I persevered because I had a gut feeling that something was wrong." Eventually, Chand's probing led to the rediscovery of an archive of evidence on an industrial estate in the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
"which they appeared to have forgotten about". Stored here were all of the swabs taken by the pathologist in December 1979. In December 2008 the Crown Prosecution Service
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...
(CPS) notified Julian Young of the initial results of the DNA analysis, and on 30 January 2009 it was confirmed that the semen detected on the vaginal and the anal swabs could not have originated from Hodgson.Paragraph 43
Acquittal and release
The case was then referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission
Criminal Cases Review Commission
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is an non-departmental public body set up following the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice itself a continuation of the May Inquiry. It aims to investigate possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
, which was informed on 26 February 2009 by the Special Crime Division of the CPS that the Crown would not oppose the appeal. The case then went to the Court of Appeal, where, in light of the new DNA evidence available, Hodgson's conviction was quashed. The judgement, which was delivered by Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...
, on 18 March 2009 concluded: “The decision leaves some important, unanswered questions. Perhaps the most important is that we do not know who raped and killed the dead girl. We can but hope for the sake of the appellant and the family of the murdered girl that her killer may yet be identified and brought to justice. But for now all we can do is to quash the conviction. It is accordingly quashed. The appellant will be discharged. There will be no new trial.”Paragraph 45
Accompanied by his brother Peter, Hodgson walked out of the Royal Courts of Justice
Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is the building in London which houses the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the High Court of Justice of England and Wales...
a free and innocent man after 27 years of wrongful imprisonment. Hodgson's barrister at the 1982 trial, Robin Grey QC, was there to shake his hand as he was released. Grey said: "As a human being I feel glad that we no longer have capital punishment
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
. As a defence barrister I didn't get him off, and I have bitter feelings of guilt about that."
Hodgson is Britain’s longest serving inmate known to be innocent. He may be eligible for up to £1 million in compensation, although this could increase if a plan to sue the FSS goes ahead. A fund was opened and an interim compensation payment of £250,000 paid into it after two MPs intervened to cut through administrative 'red tape
Red tape
Red tape is excessive regulation or rigid conformity to formal rules that is considered redundant or bureaucratic and hinders or prevents action or decision-making...
'. The fund is protected by law to shield Hodgson from "gold diggers". As a result of his imprisonment Hodgson suffers from schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
and depression and, whilst imprisoned, his identity was stolen
Identity theft
Identity theft is a form of stealing another person's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name...
making it difficult to access insurance and housing.
December 2010 arrest
In December 2010 Hodgson was returned to prison awaiting trial over new and unconnected allegations of rape and sexual assault of a 22-year-old woman with learning difficulties
Mental retardation
Mental retardation is a generalized disorder appearing before adulthood, characterized by significantly impaired cognitive functioning and deficits in two or more adaptive behaviors...
at a care home in Bishop Auckland
Bishop Auckland
Bishop Auckland is a market town and civil parish in County Durham in north east England. It is located about northwest of Darlington and southwest of Durham at the confluence of the River Wear with its tributary the River Gaunless...
, County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
, in August 2010. On 3 March 2011, Hodgson pleaded guilty at Durham Crown Court to sexual touching but denied rape. David Crook, prosecuting, said that he would offer no evidence on the rape charge, which was withdrawn. Hodgson's solicitor, Julian Young, said: "The wrongful imprisonment for 27 years of my client has had a devastating effect on his life since he was cleared of the murder he did not commit [and he] has been gripped by a number of personal difficulties, including a degree of alcohol abuse
Alcohol abuse
Alcohol abuse, as described in the DSM-IV, is a psychiatric diagnosis describing the recurring use of alcoholic beverages despite negative consequences. Alcohol abuse eventually progresses to alcoholism, a condition in which an individual becomes dependent on alcoholic beverages in order to avoid...
." The judge, Mr Justice Prince requested the preparation of pre-sentence reports to address the issue of Hodgson's dangerousness, and Hodgson was remanded in custody. On 13 May 2011 he was sentenced to a three-year community order. The judge said that the total of 156 days Hodgson had been remanded in custody prior to sentence would be taken into account, and told Hodgson he "could walk free should he agree to complete a psychiatric order imposed by the court, but his barrister Martin Heslop QC, said his client 'clearly bears a great resentment against a criminal justice system which has deprived him of 27 years of liberty'" and rejected the option.
Operation Iceberg
The availability of the new DNADNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
evidence led police to re-open the case, codenamed Operation Iceberg. On 25 March 2009 Detective Chief Inspector Phil McTavish, heading the investigation, announced that the DNA profile had been checked against the United Kingdom National DNA Database but no matches had been found. He said "A number of key witnesses have already been located, interviewed and are assisting the investigation. All persons screened to date have been eliminated against the DNA profile. We will screen as many people as we consider necessary." On 11 August 2009 McTavish released a statement that a prime suspect had been identified. "While work is ongoing to maximise DNA evidence, the inquiry team is confident they are on the right track and hopefully could be close to solving this 30 year old murder" he said.
The suspect (later identified as David Lace) was discovered when the profile of the killer showed a partial match on the national database, which belonged to a sibling of a previous suspect. A further sample was taken from another sibling, who was not on the database, to help confirm the match via the process called familial searching. At first the police refused to release the identity of the new prime suspect, except to reveal that he had committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
in 1988, and had confessed to de Simone's murder while in custody for an unrelated crime in 1983, 18 months after Hodgson's conviction. His body was exhumed at Kingston cemetery in Portsmouth
Portsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
on 12 August 2009 in order to compare his DNA to that found at the crime scene. Hampshire Constabulary
Hampshire Constabulary
Hampshire Constabulary is the territorial police force responsible for policing Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in southern England.The force area includes the cities of Winchester, Southampton and Portsmouth...
said the breakthrough in the case was only possible because of advances in forensic science and tests on the body would take six weeks, after which a file on the dead suspect could then be submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. Visitors to the cemetery in Portsmouth said the grave of the suspect had no headstone
Headstone
A headstone, tombstone, or gravestone is a marker, usually stone, that is placed over a grave. In most cases they have the deceased's name, date of birth, and date of death inscribed on them, along with a personal message, or prayer.- Use :...
and was untended. Police revealed that the suspect's confession was one of seven which had been made since Hodgson's conviction.
Hodgson's lawyer, Julian Young, said the confessions had been vital information which could have freed his client much earlier and he was shocked police had not acted on it or passed it on. "If it is true these confessions were not followed up by police or passed on to Mr Hodgson's legal team then, or to me as part of the appeal, it is surprising and very disappointing. This may raise serious questions about the way in which the police operated and their failure or unwillingness to disclose evidence. I did not know seven people made admissions. It would have been highly relevant evidence."
David Lace
David Andrew Lace (born David Andrew Williams on 2 September 1962, PortsmouthPortsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
) had spent a significant amount of his life in care or boy's homes and hostels and was considered a loner with an aggressive temper. He changed his surname when he was adopted by the Lace family as a child.
He received his first criminal conviction in November 1977, aged 15, for burglary. Between 1977 and 1984, he accrued six more convictions and was sentenced to a care order until the age of 18 for robbery in August 1978. In January 1980 he was convicted of two further crimes including theft of property from his lodgings the night before de Simone's murder. He was subsequently convicted of a series of burglaries committed in Portsmouth for which he received an 18-month custodial sentence of which he served 9 months. Following his release he committed robbery again and was sentenced at Portsmouth Crown Court to five years and nine months imprisonment, which he served at HMP Dartmoor.
Lace was released from Dartmoor in July 1987 and settled in nearby Brixham
Brixham
Brixham is a small fishing town and civil parish in the county of Devon, in the south-west of England. Brixham is at the southern end of Torbay, across the bay from Torquay, and is a fishing port. Fishing and tourism are its major industries. At the time of the 2001 census it had a population of...
, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, returning to visit family in Portsmouth in 1988. He intimated that he was depressed about his past actions and in December 1988 gave away his possessions and resigned from his job. He was last seen by friends between 7–8 December and was found dead by his landlord on 9 December. Postmortem examination revealed superficial wounds to his wrist, ingestion of analgesics and a plastic bag over his head. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation and his death was determined as suicide by the coroner. Lace was buried in Kingston Cemetery, Portsmouth on 20 December 1988. After a cross check on the DNA database found that the DNA from the murder scene showed a partial match with that of a relative of Lace, detectives requested a sample from Andrina Foster, Lace's biological sister, which gave a familial match with the murderer's DNA. As a result of this development, Lace's body was exhumed on 12 August 2009 for DNA testing as part of Operation Iceberg.
On 17 September 2009 DCI McTavish confirmed that the comparison of the DNA from the exhumed suspect's body and the DNA evidence from the crime scene presented "a complete match" and belonged to David Andrew Lace. "The evidence overwhelmingly bears out [Lace’s] involvement in the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone and we are not seeking anyone else in relation to this matter."
The Crown Prosecutor
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service, or CPS, is a non-ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom responsible for public prosecutions of people charged with criminal offences in England and Wales. Its role is similar to that of the longer-established Crown Office in Scotland, and the...
for Hampshire & Isle of Wight stated "the evidence would have been sufficient to prosecute David Lace, if he were alive, with the offences of the rape and murder of Teresa De Simone. But this is in no sense a declaration that he was guilty of the offences. Had Mr Lace lived, our decision would merely have authorised the police to begin the legal process by charging him. Only after trial does a jury decide whether a person is guilty or not, on a higher standard of proof – beyond reasonable doubt."
Lace's confession
Lace confessed to the murder on 17 September 1983. He gave a statement to police that he had stolen a rucksack and cash on 4 December 1979 from the care home in PortsmouthPortsmouth
Portsmouth is the second largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire on the south coast of England. Portsmouth is notable for being the United Kingdom's only island city; it is located mainly on Portsea Island...
where he had been living and then walked to Southampton. He was present at the rear of the Tom Tackle pub when de Simone was dropped off by Savage, and then approached de Simone when she got into her own vehicle. He first knocked on the window and asked the time but then forced his way into the driver's seat beside her and locked the doors to prevent her escaping. Once inside he sexually assaulted her and strangled her using the passenger seatbelt in the car. He then took her handbag and jewellery, and hid for approximately 10 minutes before heading to Southampton Central station and catching a train back to Portsmouth.
Because he wrongly described significant evidence (including the car and de Simone's clothes) police dismissed his statement, which was filed along with six other confessions to the crime. Hodgson's legal team was never made aware of its existence.
Search for jewellery
In his confession Lace described how he had disposed of de Simone's jewellery by throwing the items on to the railway embankment beneath Copnor Bridge in Portsmouth. In September 2009 a team of six British Transport PoliceBritish Transport Police
The British Transport Police is a special police force that polices those railways and light-rail systems in Great Britain for which it has entered into an agreement to provide such services...
officers with specialist training in forensic
Trace evidence
Trace evidence is evidence that occurs when different objects contact one another. Such materials are often transferred by heat induced by contact friction....
search techniques spent two days examining the area in an attempt to recover the jewellery. Although the ground had been the subject of extensive redevelopment in previous years and recovery of the items was considered unlikely, detectives authorised the operation to ensure every attempt had been made to find and return them to her parents. None of the items were discovered. DCI McTavish said of the search: "It is recognised that in the years since Teresa’s murder there has been a lot of disturbance and redevelopment around the railway track, but there was still a possibility that items may have lain undisturbed. Although we have not been able to recover any items linked to either Teresa or the suspect it was important we did everything to explore this final aspect of the case."
IPCC assessment
The case was referred to the Independent Police Complaints CommissionIndependent Police Complaints Commission
The Independent Police Complaints Commission is a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.-Role:...
(IPCC) on 16 September 2009 to determine whether there was evidence of misconduct or negligence by the police during the original murder investigation, the handling of Lace’s confession in 1983 and the request from Hodgson’s solicitors in 1998 for forensic examination of exhibits. The head of Southampton CID, Detective Chief Superintendent Shirley Dinnell, stated that the referral was voluntarily made by Hampshire Constabulary because of the miscarriage of justice that had taken place and to ensure transparency of inquiries.
On 28 October 2009 Mike Franklin, the IPCC commissioner for the south east, announced that as a result of the assessment no further investigation of the police's actions would be undertaken as many of the senior investigating officers were now deceased, and any new investigation "would serve no purpose in identifying areas of discipline or learning opportunities due to the passage of time." As a result of the case, however, the IPCC implemented procedural changes to ensure all exhibits relating to a case would now be kept until a convicted person had completed their sentence.
Commentary
Julian Young, Hodgson's lawyer, has also commented that Hodgson has not received any official support to adjust to life after 27 years. Inmates who serve out a long sentence undergo a long process of re-integration into society. "A person released after a conviction is quashed is not entitled to the same level of support; Sean was, in fact, released with a one-off discharge payment of £46. That was it." Compensatory action can be difficult to obtain. A compensation fund exists "from which, unbelievably, the government deducts 'board and lodging' for the time spent in prison." In the years it can take for the funds to be cleared many victims of miscarriages of justice live off social securitySocial security
Social security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. Social security may refer to:...
payments.
Gerry Conlon, who was wrongly imprisoned for 15 years, also warns that after-release support is inadequate. After the imposed routine of prison life, outside prison “you are lost.” Suicidal thoughts and attempts, panic attacks, nightmares and drug use are common. "Most people released after miscarriages of justice end up as recluses, their marriages fail, they aren't talking to their children, they become drug addicts and alcoholics, they die premature deaths."
Hodgson's release has sparked debate about the use of the death penalty, particularly about its fallibility. Neil Durkin of Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
commented in a piece for The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
: "we had the deeply sad case of Sean Hodgson, the man from Hampshire who ended up being bars for 27 years, not least because the prosecution service suppressed exculpatory DNA evidence that could have set him free a decade earlier. He was totally innocent, should never have been imprisoned in the first place and on release joins the ranks of those – eventually – rescued from their judicial fate". Durkin characterized the Hodgson case as "a warning not to trust a justice system never to be wrong".
Appeal notes
External links
- Shock over murder DNA appeal — BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
report containing archived reports of the 1979 investigation. - DNA may free man after 27 years — BBC News report broadcast before appeal verdict. Contains some original footage of the 1979 news reports
- Hodgson walks free after 27 years — BBC News footage as Sean Hodgson leaves court following exoneration.
- Hodgson solicitor on verdict — Post appeal reaction from Julian Young QC and Judy Ramjeet QC
- Hampshire Constabulary statement — Detective Chief Inspector Philip McTavish's statement outside the Court of Appeal in London
- Text of 2009 Appeal Judgement at Bailii