The Smoking Gun of Innocence Part Six

By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (March 26^th 2022)[1]

A Very Flawed Case Hypothesis

According to the Crown’s case, which was still relied on at appeal, but never revised even after crucial aspects of it were proved wrong Donna Clarke had spent the night celebrating with Denise Sullivan who had just been released from prison. They ended up at a friend’s house on Clover Road, Merthyr Tydfil – that much is and remains uncontested by police, prosecution, Clarke, Sullivan and crucial witness, Carly John, a teenage child and single-mother, and the defence lawyers of Clarke and Sullivan.

The defendants maintained that they had not separated and were therefore together at the time of the fire in the early hours of the night of October 10^th-11^th 1995 that cost young mother Diane Jones, 21, and her infant children Shauna Hibberd, 2, and Sarah-Jane Hibberd, 1, – their alibi which had been supported by John for months initially and Mark Morris, whose house in Clover Road was where Clarke and Sullivan, had been celebrating before they were alleged to have parted.

If this alibi had not been ‘broken,’ the case against both Clarke and Sullivan could not have proceeded. John, the daughter of a police officer was a child, deserving of all the protections the law had to offer – she did not get that. She eventually changed her account in February 1996. There were cracks in Clarke’s alibi now, but Sullivan was also needed to widen the breaches in it too.

At the time the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) provided protection during interviews with police officers, but was not seen as covering witnesses. This led to the ability to drive not just a coach and horses through the spirit of the legislation, but a fleet of them. It cannot have been the intent of Parliament that rather than utilise conduct seen as unbecoming in the treatment of suspects, that conduct is acceptable in the treatment of witnesses who did not enjoy the same protections at that time.

The loophole was arresting people as suspects, interviewing them with the aim of turning them into witnesses. If that was achieved, then it could not be challenged as efficiently as it needed to be, as the remaining defendants could not challenge that evidence as they could have challenged that of a co-defendant.

So, a crack in Donna Clarke’s alibi was established. It was prised open further, but it still had serious flaws.

Donna Clarke’s Window of Opportunity

Carly John said that Clarke left Morris’ home for up to 15 minutes between 1.35-150 a.m. on the night of the fire. It was at best a narrow window of opportunity, which was kind of supported by Sullivan, who changed her account to support John’s new account. Then she changed it back and was subsequently charged with perverting the course of justice. This made her a defendant rather than a potential witness for Clarke and that was vital.

John hunted with the hounds and ran with the hares during her evidence. Sullivan was convicted at the 1997 trial of perverting the course of justice and sentenced to four years imprisonment, reduced to three years six months on appeal in 1999. However, pertinent issues concerning Clarke’s opportunity to commit the crime were obfuscated at best. There was plenty that she would have had to do in a short period of time.

The Crown’s case at its height was that Clarke left the company of John and Sullivan for a maximum of 15 minutes, and that during that time she got from Clover Road to Marigold Close, prised the wooden panel off sufficiently to throw petrol in and light it. She then returned to her home in Clover Road, changed her clothes and then went back to the celebration at Morris’ home.

But the window of opportunity that had been established for Clarke was fraught with problems. It was a short window of opportunity with much to achieve in that period in circumstances where such activity should have attracted attention and witnesses – it did not.

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[1] The date on this article is when the original research and article was conducted and published, albeit not in The Fitted-In Journal or EmpowerS Magazine. There are witnesses who know that this is my original work and when it was conducted.