On 12 September 1973, Wendy Sewell, a 32-year-old legal secretary from Bakewell, Peak District in Derbyshire was found beaten, sexually assaulted and murdered. In 1974, 17-year-old Stephen Downing was convicted of the murder. Following a campaign led by local newspaper editor Don Hale highlighting multiple breaches of legal rules and procedures in the police interrogation, Downing's conviction was overturned in 2002. The case is thought to be one of the longest miscarriages of justice in British legal history, and attracted international media attention.

Downing remains the prime and only suspect in the case, with police reinvestigations finding that all the alternative suspects suggested by Don Hale could be eliminated from inquiries. Downing, meanwhile, was the only suspect who could not be eliminated. He was also recorded confessing to the crime after he was released, although he refused to be re-interviewed by police. Don Hale's book was subsequently criticised for falsehoods and inaccuracies, and police considered bringing charges against him for its contents.

When the law of double jeopardy was changed in England and Wales in 2005, allowing individuals who had previously been acquitted of a crime to be re-tried in certain circumstances, Derbyshire Police applied to the Crown Prosecution Service to re-charge Downing. However, as of July 2022, Downing has not been retried.

History

Assault

Wendy Sewell was attacked, in Bakewell Cemetery, at lunchtime on 12 September 1973. A witness, Charles Carman, saw her enter the cemetery at about 12:50 pm. She was beaten around the head seven times with the handle of a pickaxe, which had caused severe head injuries and fractures to her skull. She had been sexually assaulted, When help arrived the woman was still conscious and she then tried to stand up, before falling and banging her head on a gravestone. She died from her injuries in Chesterfield Royal Hospital two days later.

Trial

The 17-year-old cemetery groundskeeper who found the body, Stephen Downing, was immediately suspected of committing the attack. He told police he wanted to wash blood from his hands, at which point he was arrested. He later told police that he had found Sewell lying on the ground, covered in blood, and that her blood got on his clothes because she shook her head. After several hours of this treatment, Downing agreed to sign a confession. At this point Sewell had not died, and he was only charged with the lesser crime of assault. After he confessed to the assault it was revealed that Sewell had died, and Downing's charge was elevated to murder. Downing retracted his confession soon after, No full transcript of the trial exists, but it is known that, in summing up, the judge drew attention to Downing's admission during the trial of having indecently assaulted Sewell as she lay injured in the cemetery. He had also only begun to claim his confession to the murder was not genuine several weeks after he was originally charged. He said he had only confessed because he thought that she had not been seriously injured and would not die.

By a unanimous verdict, and after only 1 hour of deliberations, the jury found Downing guilty of murder. The court felt that her evidence was not credible and secure enough to allow an appeal against the conviction. After the appeal was rejected, it was widely accepted that Downing was guilty, and the case slipped into obscurity for many years.

During the Derbyshire Police's re-investigation in 2002, this witness was re-interviewed and accompanied back to the cemetery location. She reaffirmed that the fully grown trees, which have since been felled, would have obstructed her line of sight. She also revealed the knowledge that she is, and was at the time, short sighted. The witness, who was 15 years old at the time of the murder, was unable to give an adequate reason for why she came forward with her original evidence. The editor, Don Hale, took up the case and along with Downing's family ran a campaign. As part of the campaign, Sewell was made out to be responsible for causing her own rape and murder through ongoing accusations of her being promiscuousincluding being dubbed the "Bakewell Tart".

Hale found that the murder weapon, a pickaxe handle, was on display at Derby Museum. He organised his own modern forensic examination to be made of it. Mr Downing's fingerprints were not found although there was a palm print from an as yet unidentified person. However, the print could have come to be on the handle at any point in time, with it being contaminated over the years it was stored. It had not been stored in protected conditions and had been handled by countless individuals, meaning the print could have been entirely unrelated to the crime.

As a result of this campaign, along with Downing's continued claims of innocence, the case was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1997. He was released on appeal in 2001, after 27 years in prison. The following year, the Court of Appeal overturned Downing's conviction, finding the confession evidence to be unreliable.

The second appeal

During the second appeal, held on 15 January 2002, the Court of Appeal accepted many of the reasons that were put forward by Hale and others for believing the conviction was unsafe. Julian Bevan, counsel for the Crown, accepted two arguments put forward by the defence. The first was that Downing's confession should not have been allowed to go before a jury. The confession was deemed unsafe because Downing had been questioned for eight hours, during which the police shook him and pulled his hair to keep him awake; because he wasn't formally cautioned that what he said may be used in evidence against him; and because he wasn't given a solicitor. The Crown also agreed with the defence argument that more recent knowledge of blood-splattering patterns meant the prosecution's claim that the blood could only have been found on the clothes of the attacker was questionable. Blood-staining experts, however, disagreed on whether the blood-staining was not from Downing attacking Sewell, and one concluded in 2002 that: "The pattern of bloodstaining on Downing's clothing supports the assertion that Stephen Downing battered Mrs Sewell prior to handling and kneeling by her body".

Lord Justice Pill said that the Court of Appeal did not have to consider whether Downing had proved that he was innocent, but whether the original conviction was fair – "The question for [the Court of Appeal’s] consideration is whether the conviction is safe and not whether the accused is guilty". What the defence had proved was that there was reasonable doubt about the "reliability of the confessions made in 1973". His Lordship said: "The court cannot be sure the confessions are reliable. It follows that the conviction is unsafe. The conviction is quashed." A woman who he was in a relationship with had taped him confessing during an argument, and he was also alleged to have confessed to his father on two occasions in 2002 after his release. Although he had refused to be interviewed for the reinvestigation, Downing issued a formal complaint after the findings were announced, saying: "They said that they would do a thorough investigation into the matter - they have not done". An independent committee set up to oversee the police investigation later concluded that the inquiry had been completely fair and that they were satisfied with the integrity and rigour of the investigation. Downing's solicitor was among those on the committee and himself concluded that the investigation had been fair. A police report criticised Hale's book, saying that an analysis of it had shown discrepancies in his story. His arrest came four days before the screening of the BBC dramatisation of the case titled "In Denial of Murder", which concluded that Downing may have in fact committed the crime. The producers said that it was a more balanced and accurate account of the case than Hale's book Town Without Pity. This led to police to apply to the CPS to charge Downing, the prime and only suspect, once more. Downing declined to comment. He had been arrested in Buxton while dressed as a police officer, which, it was concluded, was "likely to deceive the public". The Home Office said that any new evidence would be sent to the police, and said that any evidence of police misconduct would be referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders

In 2022, a documentary on Clark's book about Peter Sutcliffe's supposed links to other murders, titled Yorkshire Ripper: The Secret Murders, was aired. He was released from Littlehey Prison in Cambridgeshire in 2001.

Downing's release was reported by the BBC as being hailed as "a triumph for campaigning journalism... and an end to one of the worst miscarriages of justice in English legal history." Downing was reported as receiving celebrity treatment upon his release. He initially found employment as a trainee chef in a Bakewell restaurant, using the training he had been given whilst in prison.

The case was featured in the 2004 BBC drama In Denial of Murder in which Jason Watkins played Stephen Downing and Caroline Catz played Wendy Sewell.

See also

  • List of miscarriage of justice cases in the United Kingdom

References

Bibliography

  • Hale, Don (2002) Town Without Pity (Century)