The Smoking Gun of Innocence Part Six
October 24, 2025The Smoking Gun of Innocence Part Eight
October 26, 2025
By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (October 24th 2025)
The Prosecution’s Case Hypothesis
In the early hours of October 11th 1995 a deliberately set fire cost 21-year-old Diane Jones and her daughters, Shauna Hibberd, 2-years-old, and Sarah-Jane Hibberd, 13-months-old, their lives. It occurred on the Gurnos Estate in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales. It was an appalling crime that shocked the nation – clearly, someone had to pay.
It was Donna Clarke’s misfortune that she had an affair with Jones’ partner, Shaun Hibberd[1]. Unsurprisingly, she was not popular with Jones and that affair and conflict between the two women made Clarke a person of interest if not the prime suspect. Whether Clarke had a motive for wanting Jones out of the way was a moot point – the crucial issue was whether she had the opportunity to have committed the crime or not.
Her alibi was a major problem. If true, it meant that she could not have been guilty. Consequently, there was no possible case against her unless her alibi could be broken or at least produce cracks in it (see The Smoking Gun of Innocence Part Six at https://fittedin.org/fittedinwp/2025/10/24/the-smoking-gun-of-innocence-part-six/).
The late Annette Hewins, Clarke’s aunt, also stood trial for those crimes over more than 4 months in 1997. The case against Hewins was weak – even the police did not think that they had gathered enough evidence to justify charging her, but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) disagreed. John Charles Rees KC[2] later took responsibility for prosecuting the defendants and for the decision to prosecute them.
Ultimately, that caused Hewins’ civil action against South Wales Police to fail. Rees and the CPS knew that they could take responsibility – rightly – safe in the knowledge that they had Crown immunity, meaning that Hewins could not sue them. There would be no accountability whatsoever whether the decision to prosecute was flawed or not, but that is a big topic for another article.
The case against Hewins amounted to whether she had deliberately lied or was mistaken about a visit to Snow’s Garage on the night of the murder. She had been there that night and was wrong about it when she said otherwise. She said it was a genuine mistake when confronted about it – she had actually visited a different garage the night before. Evidence proved that she had indeed been to Snow’s Garage on the night of the murder and bought petrol – leaded petrol – that night.
She was seen on CCTV at a leaded petrol pump. She was alleged to have gone out of sight of the CCTV camera and siphoned petrol into a Lucozade bottle which she then gave to Clarke. This was alleged to have been the petrol used in the fire – it actually wasn’t. Hewins and Clarke said that leaded petrol had been bought and put into Hewins’ car. There is no evidence that the Lucozade bottle ever contained anything other than Lucozade.
Hewins, supported by Clarke were alleged to have deliberately lied about that visit to Snow’s Garage for sinister reasons – it had the hallmarks of a genuine error made a while after the events of that fateful night. Hewins, however, was crucial to the Crown’s case against Clarke – she was essential to put petrol in Clarke’s possession. However, there were serious flaws in the police and prosecution’s case hypothesis.
[1] Hibberd was a notorious drug dealer in Merthyr Tydfil who was in prison at the time of the arson. He had no shortage of enemies.
[2] At the time of the trial Rees was a Queen’s Counsel (QC) as the monarch at that time, Elizabeth II, was female. When her son Charles became King Charles III, QCs became KCs.
