Man convicted of murder after 'new evidence' 15 years later

I love these stories because it goes to show if you've committed a crime that you should NEVER stop looking over your shoulder - and this man was originally CLEARED of Vicky Thompsons murder*

*Note to McCanns, CLEARED in this case means he was TRIED in a court of law and CLEARED, none of this phoney clearing you claim to have been.


New Evidence Sends Mum's Killer To Jail


New forensic evidence has convicted a man of murdering a mother-of-two nearly 15 years after he was originally cleared of the crime.

Vikki Thompson and Mark Weston



Vikki Thompson died less than a week after she was brutally attacked by Mark Weston

Mark Weston, now 35, was found not guilty in December 1996 of the killing of Vikki Thompson near her Oxfordshire home more than a year earlier.

The murder remained unsolved until Thames Valley Police reopened the case a decade after her death.

Detectives found small amounts of Mrs Thompson's blood, missed during the initial investigation, on a pair of Weston's boots.

With the so-called "double jeopardy" rule, which prevents someone being arrested for the same crime twice, abolished in 2005, a retrial was sought.

Weston, a "loner" who worked as an odd-job man, was convicted at Reading Crown Court and sentenced to life in jail, with a minimum term of 13 years.

Mark Weston's boot

Detectives found small amounts of Mrs Thompson's blood on Weston's boots

Pete Beirne, a retired detective recruited by police to investigate unsolved crimes, said it was a "very significant" result.

"This is the first time using double jeopardy legislation that new forensic evidence has been used to secure a conviction," he said.

Mrs Thompson was attacked while walking her dog on August 12, 1995, in the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood.

She was found battered lying on a railway embankment, unable to speak coherently about what had happened to her.

The 30-year-old died in hospital six days later, leaving behind her husband and two young children.

Vikki Thompson was found by a railway track

Mrs Thompson's husband was one of the people who found her by a rail line

Prosecutors said Weston chased and viciously assaulted Mrs Thompson because she had caught him watching her and performing a sex act.

Police found a plastic bag near the scene containing two bras stained with semen matching his DNA profile.

However, this key piece of evidence was not allowed by the judge in the first trial.

During the second trial, it was put before the jury along with the new evidence found on Weston's boots.

Outside the Reading court, Mr Thompson said: "Vikki was the perfect wife and mother and should have been able to see Matthew and Jenny turn into the fine young adults they are today.

"At least now, they know that truth and justice have finally been seen."


------

Just goes to show the evidence took the police in the right direction all those years ago too!

Keep looking over your shoulders Kate and Gerry - and your tapas mates

''However, this key piece of evidence was not allowed by the judge in the first trial.''

When we finally get to the trials ........ I seriously hope we won't have to be sitting here reading a line like this!

I have a feeling that we might.

Midas wrote:''However, this key piece of evidence was not allowed by the judge in the first trial.''

When we finally get to the trials ........ I seriously hope we won't have to be sitting here reading a line like this!

I have a feeling that we might.

So do I Midas, so do I.

POPPY1 wrote:

Midas wrote:''However, this key piece of evidence was not allowed by the judge in the first trial.''

When we finally get to the trials ........ I seriously hope we won't have to be sitting here reading a line like this!

I have a feeling that we might.

So do I Midas, so do I.

If they mess about like this, it's going to go on forever innit! It will be like the Doctors Trials at bloody Nuremberg If the doctors were proven to have been in the group there was a swift snap ending. But if the doctors weren't in the group they were fed on rats tails and sauerkraut for 15-20 years.

I'm easy either way ........ as long as we get to the bottom of all of this. Albeit through a bit of plea bargaining.

I think Portugal should make a declaration with an egg-timer. Saying that time is running out for entering into a plea bargaining scenario. Or telling the world that for every day that goes by ....... another month will be tagged onto the end of any eventual sentence.

And see if this brings any mice out from behind the skirting boards.

Someone may yet decide to speak up, though I hope they don't wait 18 years as in this case in my neck of the woods.

http://www.colerainetimes.co.uk/news/REVEALED-How-evil-dentist-Colin.6646630.jp

If nothing else this double murder case shows that even the most evil person has a conscience, though if his son hadn't died I'm not sure Colin Howell would ever have confessed. Karma, definitely.

What's SHE doing with HIM? He can't be 35 in that photo. He looks at least 50.

So if he was cleared that means he raised the fine children? Or what. Pity them, if so.

I wonder how he was re tried? In the US if you get off on a murder there is nodouble jeopardy - you would not be retried here.

I wonder if PT is the same - hence the hesitance to take a case to trial that the "powers that be" do not want tried, on shaky evidence - til they have enough to convict?

Look how long it took them to find the Romanovs. But they did find them and they did understand in the end how exactly they met their end with some excruciating detail, including who dunnit, based on death bed confession - and the right political climate.

The truth will out, if poor Madeleine is dead, it will not harm her, if justice has to wait. The perpetrator will spend a long time looking over his/her/their shoulder for the other shoe to drop.

It was the first thing I thought of when I read it.