The Smoking Gun of Innocence (Part Three)

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (October 18^th 2025)

Compromise

The quashing of the convictions of Donna Clarke and Annette Hewins in 1999 left the killings of Diane Jones, 21, and infant daughters Shauna Hibberd, 2, and Sarah-Jane Hibberd, 13 months, in limbo. The fire in Marigold Close, on the Gurnos Estate in Merthyr Tydfil in the early hours of October 11^th 1995 destroyed evidence – that was inevitable, but the remains of that shell of what had once been a home was now an eye-sore,but it may still have contained some evidence that developments in forensic sciences may be able to resolve in the future.

The announcement that the remains of the house was to be torn down caused controversy. Popular opinion supported destroying it, but some wanted it to remain pending advances in forensic sciences. Clarke and Hewins were in that camp and understandably so – it may have held the evidence that could identify the perpetrator or perpetrators of the atrocity that had stolen three young lives and unequivocally prove their innocence.

They planned to chain themselves to the house to prevent its destruction and that would have happened unless a compromise could be agreed. On January 14^th 2000 there was a meeting to try to agree a way forward. Police officers Jim Kerr and Debbie Cooper, forensic scientist C. Michael Jenkins, solicitor Stuart Hutton, Veronica Hewins, Annette Hewins, Donna Clarke and myself were among those who attended that meeting.

Important progress was made, or seemed to have occurred. I presented the petrol argument that can be read in The Smoking Gun of Innocence (Part Two) at https://empowersmag.com/empowersmagwp/2025/10/19/the-smoking-gun-of-innocence-part-two/ showing that the scientific evidence strongly suggested – proved even – that the petrol used in the fire was unleaded. Kerr leaned across and asked Jenkins if that made sense. ‘Yes, it does,’ Jenkins responded. Enhanced CCTV footage of Hewins’ visit to Snow’s Garage on the night of the fire showed that she had bought leaded petrol that night.

This meant that it was not the petrol that was used to set the fire. That meant Hewins, at least, had the smoking gun of innocence and the case against Clarke was seriously flawed at best.

Another Squaring of the Circle

This should have been a very simple case. At the very least, it was obvious that a miscarriage of justice was being allowed to happen. The evidence demonstrated that the petrol used to set the fire was unleaded. It was known that Hewins tended to use leaded petrol for her car. The circle was squared with an insurance policy – the petrol evidence of innocence could be circumvented if it could be claimed that you couldn’t tell what type of petrol was used. Hence the lab-coat test.

However, that had fallen apart with Jenkins’ acknowledgement that the inference that unleaded petrol had been used to set the fire was justified. It had been suggested that it could not be proved what type of petrol had been bought by Hewins, but the enhanced footage showed that it had been leaded.

It had been claimed that rather than use the cleaner to vacuum her car Hewins and Clarke syphoned some of the petrol into a Lucozade bottle out of sight of the CCTV camera and that Clarke took it away and used it to set fire to Jones’ home. The evidence showed that Hewins had bought leaded petrol that night and that the petrol used in the fire was unleaded. This meant that the petrol bought by Hewins was not the petrol used to set the fire and that, therefore, it did not matter a whit for the purposes of the investigation of the Gurnos Fire, if Hewins had given the petrol she bought to Clarke or not. That meant that there was another circle that needed to be squared – Clarke had to get hold of some unleaded petrol and according to the police and prosecution’s timings she had a very small window of opportunity.

In fact, the mathematical and athletics circles could not be squared.