{"id":2633,"date":"2025-10-20T12:22:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T12:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/?p=2633"},"modified":"2025-12-07T11:31:34","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:31:34","slug":"the-smoking-gun-of-innocence-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/2025\/10\/20\/the-smoking-gun-of-innocence-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"The Smoking Gun of Innocence (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (October 18th<\/sup> 2025)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unleaded?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, the fire that claimed the lives of Diane Jones and her infant children, Shauna and Sarah-Jane Hibberd in the early hours of October 11th<\/sup> 1995 was thought to be accidental \u2013 it wasn\u2019t. Traces of petrol was detected, especially on samples of carpet recovered from the scene of the crime. Tests for constituents of the petrol established that there was no evidence that the petrol had been leaded in circumstances where there would have been proof if it had been leaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traces of toluene and the xylenes (m-xylene, o-xylene and p-xylene) were discovered,[1]<\/a> but Tetraethyl lead (TEL), the leaded component of petrol was not \u2013 this was very significant because TEL had a higher boiling point, 200\u00b0 Celsius, than both toluene and the xylenes. That meant that the temperature of the petrol in the carpet sample \u2013 it smelled strongly of petrol months later \u2013 could not have reached the boiling point of TEL as it had not reached the lower temperatures required for toluene and the xylenes to evaporate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor were there traces of the lead scavengers,1,2-Dibromoethane, aka Ethylene Dibromide (EDB), which boils at 129-133\u00b0 Celsius or 1,2-Dichloroethane (EDC)[2]<\/a>, which boils at 84\u00b0 Celsius. EDB had a higher boiling point than toluene, which boils at 110.6\u00b0 Celsius, so if it had been leaded petrol, it would be expected that Ethylene Dibromide would have been detected \u2013 it wasn\u2019t and nor were any of the compounds, which include Lead-Dibromide and Lead-Dichloride, that would have been formed by the chemical reactions that the antiknock constituents of the petrol were designed to ensure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaded petrol has now been phased out due to its detrimental effects on health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Squaring Another Circle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The importance of all this is that there was no evidence whatsoever to support the suggestion that the petrol used in the arson was leaded and the investigation had proceeded for several months on the basis \u2013 justified by the scientific evidence \u2013 that the petrol used to set the fire was unleaded. At first, this was no problem, but eventually the police discovered proof that Annette Hewins had indeed bought petrol at the nearby Snow\u2019s Garage that night and wrongly said that she hadn\u2019t. When confronted with evidence that she had bought petrol that night (leaded petrol) she accepted her error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Police thought she had lied deliberately, but even if they were right about that a huge problem in the case against her remained. The evidence showed that the petrol used in the arson was unleaded and there was evidence that she had bought leaded petrol. Instead of accepting that this presented serious difficulties for the prosecution case, a grossly flawed test was conducted to try to square the circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A forensic scientist squirted some leaded petrol onto a small section of his lab-coat. He then set it on fire and extinguished it before testing it for traces of leaded petrol, which he did not find as unsurprisingly the sample was consumed in the test. He then concluded that even if leaded petrol had been used in the arson, it would not have been detected as it would have been consumed in the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First of all, it was already known that there was petrol on the carpet samples months later and the fabric and structure of the carpet bore no similarity whatsoever to the section of the scientist\u2019s lab-coat. It beggared belief that such a test, which was of highly questionable scientific value at best, was permitted. Nevertheless, the water had been muddied to such an extent that Clarke and Hewins were found guilty of arson with intent to endanger life and Sullivan of perverting the course of justice \u2013 she had allegedly given Clarke a false alibi \u2013 in 1997. Clarke and Hewins had their convictions quashed on appeal in 1999 \u2013 the case against Clarke lies on the file, although it is unlikely that she would ever face trial again, but this was not the end of the story \u2013 the science would prove to be the smoking gun of innocence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> The xylenes can be referred to individually or as mixed-xylenes \u2013 the boiling point of the latter is 137-140\u00b0 Celsius. The point for this article is that it is higher than both lead scavengers but lower than TEL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> 1,2-Dichloroethane is also known as Ethylene Dichloride (EDC). It has a boiling point of 84\u00b0 Celsius, which is lower than the boiling points of both toluene and the xylenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (October 18th 2025) Unleaded? At first, the fire that claimed the lives of Diane [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19],"tags":[477,945,948,924,947,942,944,941,943,946,940,935,933,926,925,949,931,939,938,927,930,937,936,934],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2633"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2664,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2633\/revisions\/2664"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fittedin.org\/fittedinwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}