Respect

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (May 8^th 2011)

Disgraceful

Neil Sayers had been shamefully let down. The 19 year-old student at Hadlow Agricultural College in Kent was left to pay the price for his lack of knowledge of forensic entomology. The life cycles of insects was crucially important to his chance of justice as that was the only possibility in the circumstances of this case to establish the post-mortem-interval, which would show when the relevant event to the body took place – either a range of when death occurred or, in this case, when the attempt to partially burn the body of Russell Crookes took place.

Crookes had been missing for almost two weeks. His mutilated, partially burned, maggot-infested body was discovered in a waterlogged grave in a copse run by Hadlow Agricultural College. Graham Wallis could be tied to the crime in various ways, but he took the chance to shift blame onto Sayers. Either Sayers is guilty and is therefore a vicious murderer and callous liar, or he is the victim of a cruel miscarriage of justice.

Forensic science offered the best chance to resolve whether Wallis was telling the truth, or cynically inserted an innocent man – supposedly a friend – into his account, to cover up his own responsibility for the murder of Russell Crookes. Sayers’ defence team performed abysmally. Evidence proving that Wallis had lied repeatedly was ignored, even the indisputable scientific variety. They ignored evidence that could have proved that Wallis had lied about when the fire occurred, even though that would have opened the door to destroying Wallis’ credibility.

A First Bite

Sayers knows that the criminal justice system does not permit him to have a second bite of the cherry, but he didn’t get a first bite. Wallis insisted that they had tried to burn the body of Russell Crookes immediately after he was killed, but this was hard to believe, because there had been several visits to that site in the days following Crookes’ disappearance.

According to Charles Miskin QC’s case the scorch-pattern and fire-related debris had been there on every one of these visits and been missed by all of them. It seemed very unlikely, but Sayers’ lawyers had failed to call evidence regarding the fire-site at the trial. He would not get a second chance. The same could have been argued regarding the maggots too, but Sayers was fortunate. Legal aid was granted once Kent Police confirmed that some maggots had been located.

Some had been routinely thrown away. Imagine throwing away half a cloth that had smeared blood on it before having it DNA tested and storing the rest in a fridge or cupboard at a police station for five years. Change cloth for maggots and that’s what happened here. It should never be allowed to happen again. This was vital evidence and it should have been treated with the respect due to a forensic science and evidence.

Belated Tests

Sadly the fixed sample, rather than the sample to be reared, had been thrown away. They would have been better as the time the precise time they died was known, which would have meant that a more accurate post-mortem-interval could have been calculated. The ʻreared’ maggots still existed; they were located in a fridge at a police station. They were brought to Dr Martin Hall’s laboratory at the National History Museum and tested by both Hall and his independent German colleague Dr Mark Benecke.

For five years the maggots had been prevented from telling their story, even though they were the only scientific way of establishing when the body suffered a significant event, which was either when death occurred if they had survived the attempt to burn the body, or when that attempt took place if they hadn’t. Unfortunately, Michael Heath’s error over the extent of fire-damage caused further problems and that would require a small fortune to put right.