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Russell murders, new suspect.

Vixen said:
It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the police. Once a case goes to trial - based on a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service quite independently of the police - it is out of police hands.
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Read again. The police still have custody of the evidence. A vital piece of evidence, testing of which could potentially exonerate Stone, has vanished.
 
Oh yes, the Daily Mail. That well-known bastion of accuracy and truthfulness.

Josie Russell may well believe strongly that Stone is guilty. It's extremely common for the victims of crime and their relatives to become invested in the prosecution case and believe it wholeheartedly. She has however never explicitly identified Stone as the man she saw attacking her that day. She didn't manage to pick him out of a police line-up.
 
Vixen said:
It has absolutely nothing at all to do with the police. Once a case goes to trial - based on a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service quite independently of the police - it is out of police hands.
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Where the police have enormous influence is over what they decide to investigate and what evidence they disclose to the CPS. If they decide not to investigate a certain witness and miss out exculpatory evidence, they create the impression of guilt and the CPS believes it has a much stronger case that it actually has.

An example of that in this case, is the witness who saw a male in a car and later recognised him as Bellfield.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-41652456

"Stone's legal team also say they have an eye witness who is convinced she saw Bellfield speeding away from the murder scene."

My understanding is she reported what she saw the day the murder was reported and it took weeks before she was seen. She then reports having seen Bellfield that it was him in the car.
 
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What's the chances there were two dangerous psychopaths in the vicinity when the Russells were murdered, but only one of them committed the crime? Weird things happen. Then the police latch on to one of the psychopaths, get a conviction to a large extent because he is a psychopath, and then don't want to look at the possibility the other psychopath might have been the real killer.

And the Russells moved to Kent to find a safe place to bring their children up in the countryside. Two murderous psychopaths in one afternoon.
 
If you look back at the timeline of UK serial killers, for example;

Dennis Nilsen 1978-1983
Harold Shipman 1975-1998
The Wests 1967-1987
Peter Sutcliffe 1975-1980
Robert Black 1981-1986

it is reasonable to say there are a few operating at any one time.
 
True, but in the same wee corner of England?

I don't think Stone actually killed anyone else so if he didn't kill the Russells he's not a serial killer. Bellfield is, of course. But Stone had the psychiatric profile and was/is probably a danger to the public.
 
Rolfe said:
True, but in the same wee corner of England?

I don't think Stone actually killed anyone else so if he didn't kill the Russells he's not a serial killer. Bellfield is, of course. But Stone had the psychiatric profile and was/is probably a danger to the public.
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At his trial, the jury would not have been told of any of his 'previous'.

Basing an opinion that 'it must have been Bellfield as he has a record of serial killing' is logically incorrect, and rightly, a court of law doesn't work on specious probability.

It was Stone on trial and the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt he did it.

If there is 'new' evidence, it has to be genuinely new, not known of as of the time of the trial.
 
Well a new confession by someone else comfortably passes the threshold for new evidence. Whether such evidence stands up to scrutiny is another thing.
 
Vixen said:
At his trial, the jury would not have been told of any of his 'previous'.

Basing an opinion that 'it must have been Bellfield as he has a record of serial killing' is logically incorrect, and rightly, a court of law doesn't work on specious probability.

It was Stone on trial and the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt he did it.

If there is 'new' evidence, it has to be genuinely new, not known of as of the time of the trial.
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However, after Stone was convicted any previous offences would have been disclosed at the time of sentencing. I don't remember that he'd actually done anything, just that he was a drug addict and he'd told a psychiatric nurse that he'd been having intrusive thoughts about killing someone. Allegedly. I don't think that evidence was accepted.

I have certainly never proposed that it must have been Bellfield because he's a known serial killer. I was pointing out the improbability of there being two potential murderers in the vicinity that afternoon, and yet that seems to have been the case. Stone was there or thereabouts and so was Bellfield. We seem to have the same evidence against both of them - they were in the area, they're psychotic potential murderers, and they're both said to have confessed to jailhouse snitches. Interesting conundrum, which could probably be solved by testing the boot lace except the boot lace has mysteriously vanished.

You know, courts have expressed themselves satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that many people committed many crimes, only for these people to be acquitted on appeal at a later date. Barry George, Sion Jenkins, Paul Esslemont, Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Stefan Kiszko, Eddie Gilfoyle, all those wrongly convicted of the IRA bombings - hell, Wikipedia has a pretty long list and it's obviously not complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscarriage_of_justice_cases#United_Kingdom

So "the court was satisfied he did it" really isn't an argument that's worth typing, in a discussion about whether the court made a mistake. Courts make these mistakes all the time.
 
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Rolfe said:
True, but in the same wee corner of England?

I don't think Stone actually killed anyone else so if he didn't kill the Russells he's not a serial killer. Bellfield is, of course. But Stone had the psychiatric profile and was/is probably a danger to the public.
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Stone's profile is somewhat different to Bellfield's. He had previous history of threats and violence towards men he had grudges against, and people who frustrated his attempts at theft. He was apparently fantasising about killing family members of his probabation officer, but again that was related to blaming that person for the loss of his own relationship. Bellfield has a history involving attacks on women and children who are total strangers to him and the specific method of hitting them on the head. Bellfield also shows more callous unemotional traits and ability to appear charming and manipulate people, whereas Stone shows impulsive behaviour and complete lack of ability to make a good impression, which is why he didn't testify at his trial.

There doesn't seem to be enough evidence to say Bellfield is responsible, but there seem to be as much evidence against him as there is against Stone. There is DNA evidence from an unknown male from the scene that has been ruled out as coming from Stone, but Bellfield has not ruled out as yet. There is the same confession evidence to another prisoner in both cases. Stone's alleged confession doesn't contain anything that was not published in sources Daley could have seen. If the alleged confession of Bellfield did contain information not in the public domain, then it could be stronger evidence than Stone's confession. Josie's description of the murderer being taller than 6" and round-faced fits Bellfield better than Stone. Bellfield's former partner has apparently stated that at the time of the murders he was borrowing her car, which matched the description of the one driven by the killer, and that he never returned it and said it had been stolen. I don't know how credible her statement is, and it seem strange that if true, it isn't receiving more attention. Nobody has been able to show that Stone had access to a similar car at the time.
 
Vixen said:
At his trial, the jury would not have been told of any of his 'previous'.

Basing an opinion that 'it must have been Bellfield as he has a record of serial killing' is logically incorrect, and rightly, a court of law doesn't work on specious probability.

It was Stone on trial and the court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt he did it.

If there is 'new' evidence, it has to be genuinely new, not known of as of the time of the trial.
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Known by whom? Bear in mind the police may have known, but not passed that on to the CPS. Or at the time the significance of what was known was not clear.
 
Rolfe said:
However, after Stone was convicted any previous offences would have been disclosed at the time of sentencing. I don't remember that he'd actually done anything, just that he was a drug addict and he'd told a psychiatric nurse that he'd been having intrusive thoughts about killing someone. Allegedly. I don't think that evidence was accepted.

I have certainly never proposed that it must have been Bellfield because he's a known serial killer. I was pointing out the improbability of there being two potential murderers in the vicinity that afternoon, and yet that seems to have been the case. Stone was there or thereabouts and so was Bellfield. We seem to have the same evidence against both of them - they were in the area, they're psychotic potential murderers, and they're both said to have confessed to jailhouse snitches. Interesting conundrum, which could probably be solved by testing the boot lace except the boot lace has mysteriously vanished.

You know, courts have expressed themselves satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that many people committed many crimes, only for these people to be acquitted on appeal at a later date. Barry George, Sion Jenkins, Paul Esslemont, Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, Donna Anthony, Stefan Kiszko, Eddie Gilfoyle, all those wrongly convicted of the IRA bombings - hell, Wikipedia has a pretty long list and it's obviously not complete. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_miscarriage_of_justice_cases#United_Kingdom

So "the court was satisfied he did it" really isn't an argument that's worth typing, in a discussion about whether the court made a mistake. Courts make these mistakes all the time.
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They were not released 'because the court made a mistake', they were released because the conviction was considered 'unsafe'. Many police officers remain certain of the guilt of several you have mentioned, above.

Remember, they see the crime scene first hand and witness the suspects.

The defence only needs to introduce an element of doubt, and that is what Stone's lawyers are banking on.

From what I can see, they are attempting a 'Kathleen Zellner': trying to get an established killer to 'confess' (Zellner visited Death Row deathbeds) which means the other person convicted gets their conviction 'vacated' and then put in a claim for US$m's compensation, of which Zellner takes her chunk.

Bellfield's lawyers deny Bellfield has confessed and claim to have in heir possession three notes from Stone trying to bribe Bellfield into conspiring to get Stone freed so that he can get compensation for 20 years jail.

So where is the evidence that Bellfield confessed?

It is all in the mind of Stone's lawyers and the guillible tabloid press looking for a good headline to sell papers.
 
Many police officers and prosecution lawyers remain absolutely certain of the guilt of people who have been conclusively exonerated. It's such a consistent phenomenon there's even a recent book about it.

https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520287952

And just this week I saw Dick Marquise going on yet again about how the utterly incredible identification of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi by Tony Gauci can never be questioned because "the judges were able to see him testify and judge his credibility." That despite the fact that multiple people who were also in court and also saw him testify reported that he was stammering and hesitant and the transcript shows that even in the witness box he never said straight out that he recognised Megrahi as the customer. If nothing can ever be questioned on the grounds that judges (or policemen or lawyers) can see into a witness's soul and divinely intuit truthfulness, no appeal is ever going to get off the ground.

It's all about the conviction being unsafe. If Stone's conviction is unsafe it should be vacated. Just like these other ones were. (And in fact you have to turn logic and rationality on their heads to believe any of the people I listed were actually guilty, but then that's what people on the prosecution team do, as Godsey explains.)

And constantly going on about "gullible public" and "selling papers" is just deflection. Doubts have been being cast on the safety of this conviction for many years, before Bellfield's name even entered the picture and before any newspaper got involved. I also don't see any upwelling of public sympathy for Stone, who seems to be a most unpleasant character. But if the evidence isn't strong enough to convict him, he should not be convicted.
 
Rolfe said:
Many police officers and prosecution lawyers remain absolutely certain of the guilt of people who have been conclusively exonerated. It's such a consistent phenomenon there's even a recent book about it.

https://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520287952

And just this week I saw Dick Marquise going on yet again about how the utterly incredible identification of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi by Tony Gauci can never be questioned because "the judges were able to see him testify and judge his credibility." That despite the fact that multiple people who were also in court and also saw him testify reported that he was stammering and hesitant and the transcript shows that even in the witness box he never said straight out that he recognised Megrahi as the customer. If nothing can ever be questioned on the grounds that judges (or policemen or lawyers) can see into a witness's soul and divinely intuit truthfulness, no appeal is ever going to get off the ground.
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Unfortunately experienced police investigators tend to be grossly overconfident in their ability to detect deception, and it's likely that many people would just wrongly assume that having experience at judging credibility would make people more accurate. As we know, research doesn't support this, and has shown that experienced investigators tend to be no more accurate and often less accurate in judging deception than untrained laypeople.
 
Elaedith said:
Unfortunately experienced police investigators tend to be grossly overconfident in their ability to detect deception, and it's likely that many people would just wrongly assume that having experience at judging credibility would make people more accurate. As we know, research doesn't support this, and has shown that experienced investigators tend to be no more accurate and often less accurate in judging deception than untrained laypeople.
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What other/better method do we have than a fair and proper trial in a court of law?

If you commit a crime and plead not guilty, you have a high chance of walking free, thanks to sympathetic jurors (cf the recent case of the guy charged with tampering with his wife's parachute), thus, the tiny number who are found 'guilty' after an often long and exhaustively fair trial - perhaps a third - have achieved the high bar threshold of 'Beyond a Reasonable Doubt'.

I was juror in a case where the defendant openly admitted he committed the assault, yet my fellow jurors came back with 'not guilty'.

In a murder trial, the bar is even higher. There is no benefit from convicting the wrong person.

In the case of the Chillenden murders, posters here are baying, 'Where is the forensic evidence' yet wilfully ignoring the fact the perpetrator took great pains to remove evidence from the scene. The bootlaces used to tie the victims were removed from the scene. One was accidentally left behind and an eye witness saw a highly agitated man such that she was able to stare at his face in the car mirror and provide an e-fit. The e-fit clearly shows someone with sticking out ears. Bellfield's ears are close to his head. So the claim, 'Oh, the e-fit could fit Bellfield' is an attempt to shoe-horn post-hoc backwards suspect-centric logic to 'the alternative theory'.

An eye witness said Stone visited their house with a blood splattered t-shirt within the time frame of the crime.

But we are to ignore all this, because the public love a romantic 'wrong man spends 20-years in jail' sob story and conveniently overlook the fact there was a fact-finding merits trial, with twelve just men/women bending over to give a fair and true verdict to the best of their ability, only after hearing all of the evidence put before the court (note: not just selected bits).

Stone knew things that were not in the public domain. He described the towels the woman and child were strangled with as 'wet', for example.


If there is merit in this 'new evidence' it is utter paranoid conspiracy theory to assert the criminal review committee will reject it automatically 'because they cannot bear to admit they were wrong'.

If Stone is attempting a fraudulent stunt to immorally gain compensation, then he should be charged further and his lawyers reported to the Bar Standards as to their conduct.
 
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Vixen said:
'Where is the forensic evidence' yet wilfully ignoring the fact the perpetrator took great pains to remove evidence from the scene.
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People are saying 'where is the forensic evidence' because you claimed there was forensic evidence linking Stone to the crime scene. We are still waiting to hear what it is.
 
We may be waiting rather a long time. We seem to be back to "the court never makes a mistake" and "it's all those newspapers and the ignorant, sensation-seeking public". Which I imagine we're assumed to be part of.

I've had my doubts about this conviction for about six years, long before this present round of publicity. I think I've even said so in other threads. I thought it was unlikely it would ever be reviewed, but if there is credible evidence pointing to someone else, that may happen.
 
Rolfe said:
..... I was pointing out the improbability of there being two potential murderers in the vicinity that afternoon, and yet that seems to have been the case. .....
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This is the only murder Stone has been accused/convicted of. So what we have is one serial killer and an aggressive violent man in the same area at the same time, which is far more probable.
 
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