The Smoking Gun of Innocence Part Ten
October 28, 2025Donna Clarke’s Greatest Run (Part Two)
December 5, 2025
By Satish Sekar © Satish Sekar (December 1st 2025)
The Concession
On January 14th 2000 I explained to Superintendent Jim Kerr, a colleague of his and forensic scientist C. Michael Jenkins why the evidence strongly suggested that the petrol used in the fire at 62 Marigold Close, Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, in the early hours of October 11th 1995 that cost Diane Jones, 21, and her daughters, Shauna Hibberd, 2, and Sarah-Jane Hibberd, 1, their lives, was unleaded. Jenkins agreed that what I had said made sense when asked by Kerr. This should have changed the course of that inquiry, as the implications of that information was devastating for the Crown’s case.
After the concession regarding the type of petrol used in the fire, Annette Hewins was completely exonerated or should have been as the petrol that she bought that night was not the petrol used in the fire. That also had serious implications on the case against Donna Clarke as it also meant that if Clarke set the fire, she would have had to obtain it during the 15-minute window of opportunity given by the Crown’s case, so Clarke would have had to go and get the unleaded petrol herself (probably by siphoning it), go to Diane Jones’ home, prise the wooden door panel off enough to throw the petrol into the house without waking Diane then, go back to her home in Clover Road, change her clothes and go back to the friend’s house.
Clarke had to achieve all that in just 15 minutes. The nearest garages – the only sure places where the necessary type of petrol could have been obtained – were the Esso Garage in Dowlais, which was the nearest, or Snow’s, which was the nearest to Hewins’ home. As time was of the essence, Clarke was most likely to have had to try one of those garages if she was to obtain the ‘right’ type of petrol.[1]
This also demolishes the suggestion about the Lucozade bottle as there would have been no reason for Clarke to have put some of the petrol Hewins bought into it but not used it and gone off to get unleaded petrol instead. Why would an arsonist who had no qualms about setting a house on fire spurn leaded petrol to do so and only use the more environmentally aware unleaded form? So, how far did she have to travel, and how long would it have taken to get what she needed?
Distances and Timings
By car
121 Clover Road to Esso Garage, Dowlais 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated time 5 minutes).
Esso Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated time 6 minutes).
By bicycle
121 Clover Road to Esso Garage, Dowlais 2.4 miles – 3862.4256 (estimated time 16 minutes)
Esso Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.1 miles – 3379.6224 (estimated time 15 minutes).
By foot
121 Clover Road to Esso Garage, Dowlais 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated walking time 44 minutes).
Esso Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 1.9 miles – 3057.7536 metres (estimated walking time 44 minutes).
The other possibility was Snow’s Garage (now known as Applegreen) – I am using the distances and estimated times listed on google.[2]
By car
121 Clover Road to Snow’s Garage, Lower High Street, Merthyr Tydfil 2.0 miles – 3379.6224 metres (estimated time 6 minutes).
Snow’s Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.7 miles – 4345.2288 metres (estimated time 10 minutes).
By bicycle
121 Clover Road to Snow’s Garage, Lower High Street, Merthyr Tydfil 2.0 miles – 3379.6224 (estimated time 16 minutes)
Snow’s Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.7 miles – 4345.2288 metres (estimated time 26 minutes).
By foot
121 Clover Road to Snow’s Garage, Lower High Street, Merthyr Tydfil 2.0 miles – 3379.6224 (estimated walking time 44 minutes)
Snow’s Garage to 62 Marigold Close Merthyr Tydfil 2.7 miles – 4345.2288 metres (estimated walking time 54 minutes).
She then had to go back from 62 Marigold Close to her home in Clover Road, a distance of 965.6064 metres and then from that address back to 121 Clover Road, which is a distance of 56.9976 metres. This means that the total distances that Donna Clarke would have had to travel[3] based on the lowest figures are as follows. If she obtained the petrol from the Esso Garage that meant a total distance of 7138.1112 metres, but if she went to Snow’s Garage instead the total distance would have been 7942.7842 metres. It should be clear from the figures detailed above that Clarke could not have obtained the petrol and set the fire within the prosecution’s timeframe unless she was, in fact, a truly great athlete.
Donna Makes History – Her Greatest Run
This means that she would have had to run at a pace of:
7.9312346667 metres/second – Dowlais.
8.82531577778 metres/second – Snow’s.[4]
In order to appreciate the greatness of her athletic feat, it is a faster pace throughout the distance than any world records of female athletes up to and including the 800 metres. On July 26th 1983 Jarmila Kratochvilová, then representing Czechoslovakia, ran the 800 metres in a time of 1 minute 53.28 seconds (113.28 seconds) in the Olympic Stadium in Munich (München). Her average pace during that race – a world record that still stands over 42 years after she set it was 7.06214689266 metres/second, which was a slower pace than Donna Clarke had to have ran to either of the garages mentioned above.
Only the former East German Marita Koch (400 metres), the late Florence Griffith-Joyner (100 and 200 metres) and the Russian, Irina Privalova (50 and 60 metres) had run their races at a faster pace, although Koch and Privalova ran their’s at a slower pace that Clarke would have had to have done on the Snow’s Garage route.[5]
Donna Clarke had to have been a very, very special athlete – Britain’s greatest ever.
[1] There was no guarantee that if petrol was siphoned from a parked car, that it would have the right type of petrol. She would have had to go to a garage to be certain of the type of petrol she obtained.
[2] There was a significant difference between the recorded distance between Snow’s Garage as it then was and 62 Marigold Close. It was originally recorded on google as the equivalent of 3540.5568 metres. Precise measurements are required – interestingly, neither prosecution, defence or media has ever done this. In the meantime, calculations will be performed using the lowest figures – it will of course, be obvious that the task Donna Clarke would have had to perform would have been significantly harder to accomplish if the distance was longer.
[3] She had no car and could not wait for transport, nor was a bicycle available. There is no evidence that she was given a lift or that she found and used a bicycle – no discarded bike was discovered or evidence given about a journey that had not been required to discuss until after that meeting and even if she had access to a car or bicycle, the timings do not add up. She had to run – she had no time to waste – and she had to achieve the incredible pace mentioned above.
[4] It would be preferable to obtain precise figures of the distances involved so the pace that she would have had to maintain throughout could be established precisely. Her pace has been calculated allowing the full 15 minutes. It should be noted that the Crown QC’s case at trial gave her less time and there were activities she would have had to perform that would have taken time to achieve as well. That will be incorporated in a forthcoming article.
[5] This will be shown in Donna Clarke’s Greatest Run Part Three, which will be published in this Journal soon.
