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Suspicious and Unexplained Deaths

The case of MI6 spy Gareth Williams is one of those rare mysteries that seems to defy all logic. It begins with a body, but it is a body within a locked bag within a locked room. Detectives and scientists have marshaled all their resources in an attempt to work out how it happened yet at the end of it we do not even know the cause of death.

Up until the inquest into Gareth Williams’ death was not classed as a homicide for the reason that the police could not even be sure anyone else was involved. It was instead classed as ‘suspicious and unexplained’ (although the case was investigated by the ‘Homicide and Serious Crime Command’, often referred to as the ‘murder squad’).

So how many suspicious and unexplained deaths do the murder squad deal with each year? We put in a Freedom of Information request covering the last five years, and this is what came back:

Financial Year	Total S/U Deaths	Remains S/U	Reclassified as Homicide
2011/12	16	16	0
2010/11	20	11	2
2009/10	28	22	3
2008/09	20	10	5
2007/08	31	16	6

The ‘total s/u deaths’ is the number of suspicious / unexplained deaths referred to the Homicide and Serious Crime Command during that year.

This shows that the Gareth Williams case was just one of 20 suspicious / unexplained deaths in the financial year 2010-2011. It is one of 11 such cases that remain classed as suspicious / unexplained.

Cases are more likely to reclassified as time goes by, which explains the increase in the final column. It is also reassuring to know that the decrease in the number of homicides over the last ten years isn’t explained by an increase in cases classed as suspicious / unexplained.

On the other hand, the families of those whose cases remain unexplained must find it incredibly frustrating not knowing exactly what happened. It is only in rare cases like that of Gareth Williams that they are brought under the media spotlight.

Interior Flat no. 6 — Photos released by police during the investigation into the death of Gareth Williams

Off the Map: The case of Jayden Wray

This week it was reported that the parents of Jayden Wray had been cleared by the High Court of all responsibility for the death of their son.

As a result we have decided to remove the case from the map as it can no longer be said to be a homicide. Although experts disagreed about the cause of death, it is now thought that Rickets was responsible for the injuries.

This is how the case appeared before it was deleted:

Four month-old Jayden Wray died after suffering serious head injuries and fractures to his arm, leg and hands.
He was taken to hospital on July 22, 2009, after falling ill at the family home on the Barnsbury Estate in Islington, north London.
The boy died three days later at Great Ormond Street hospital.
His mother Chana Al-Alas, 18, and father Rohan Wray, 20, were initially charged with grievous bodily harm and released on police bail.
Following further medical reports, on August 3, 2010, they were charged with murder and causing or allowing the death of a child.
They went on trial at the Old Bailey on November 1, 2011. The prosecution claimed that Jayden died of brain damage after being shaken by his parents. The boy also suffered from Rickets, a softening of bones caused by vitamin D deficiency.
On December 9, 2011, both parents were cleared of all charges on the direction of the judge Stephen Kramer QC.
He said he had made his decision because the expert evidence about the cause of death was contradictory.
Judge Kramer added: “The evidence is that the parents were acting properly and gave no cause at all for concern over their care for Jayden.”
murdermap case summary

Links:

Parents cleared over Jayden Wray death of rickets – BBC

Couple cleared of killing son call for inquiry – Telegraph

Baby Jayden case renews concerns over rickets and child abuse allegations – Guardian

Parents of Jayden Wray reunited with second child after winning battle against Islington Council – Islington Gazette

The London Homicide Manual

How do detectives investigate a murder? Books, TV programmes and documentaries give us some idea – even if their focus is on a single grizzled cop who solves a homicide single-handed. But what exactly is the ‘procedure’ when that call first comes in about a dead body?

As it happens the Metropolitan Police have what is called the ‘London Homicide Manual Specific Operating Procedure’, described as ‘the premier instruction document on the investigation of homicide and unexplained death.’

What does it contain? The answer is we don’t know. Last month the Met agreed to release the document following a request under the Freedom of Information Act – but only after the majority of it was redacted under Section 31(1)(a)(b) on the grounds it was not in the public interest.

In their response, the Met admitted there was an argument for full disclosure:

Better awareness of the MPS and its procedures may reduce crime or lead to more information from the public.
This information could be a useful deterrent to those with criminal intent, as the abilities and capabilities of the MPS who are charged with enforcing the law by preventing and detecting crime and protecting the communities we serve will be apparent. There is also a public interest in the transparency of policing operations.
Disclosure could provide the public with an understanding that public funds are being used appropriately.

But the Met also saw powerful reasons for withholding information about how they investigate homicide:

Release would have the serious effect of compromising law enforcement tactics and would also hinder the prevention and detection of crime.
In addition the release of any information that is directly concerned with the investigation of crime would prejudice investigations and any possible future proceedings.
Disclosure would technically be releasing very sensitive operational information into the public domain, which would enable those with the time, capacity and inclination to use the information contained in this document to map strategies to counter the techniques used by the MPS to investigate homicides.
Additionally MPS resources and its ability to operate effectively and efficiently would be directly affected as this information can be manipulated by those with criminal intent to operate without fear of prejudice in those areas.
Metropolitan Police

The Met do have a point – it isn’t a good idea to give criminals information that helps them to get away with murder. To make an analogy (perhaps inappropriately), no football manager would publish his tactics ahead of a match.

Whether or not entire chapters had to be redacted is hard to tell. All we have is the titles – Responsibility for Investigation, Initial Response, Specialist Crime Directorate Response, Policy Guidance and Good Practice, Record Keeping, Murder Review, Use of HOLMES [Home Office Large Major Enquiry System] within the Major Incident Room.

What remains is the introduction and the first chapter dealing with the relevant homicide legislation.

This level of redaction appears to contrast with the ACPO Murder Investigation Manual from 2006 and the ‘Territorial Policing SOP: Minimum Standards for the Primary Investigation of Crime’, which has already been released under the Freedom of Information Act (pdf available via What Do They Know).

Should the manual have been released in full or is that taking ‘Open Justice’ too far?

Playing Politics with Murder

The London ‘murder rate’ has become something of a political football as the Mayoral election draws near.

Last year the Evening Standard reported that the number of murders in the capital had fallen to a level not seen since 1978. On Saturday the Times reported that it had continued to fall to a level not seen since 1969.

Boris Johnson is naturally happy to claim that the number of murders has fallen by 25 per cent since he took office in 2008.

Yet Ken Livingstone was also able to point to statistics showing that the number of murders had recently increased by 7.6 per cent. How is this possible?

The answer is that it depends on the period you look at, as there can be wild variations from month to month.

As the Full Fact organisation has pointed out in its analysis of the claims by both Boris and Ken, small variations can lead to large percentage swings.

The Evening Standard article in January 2011 was based on the calendar year – which highlighted a drop to 125 homicides in 2010 from 133 in 2009.

Whereas the Times article was using the Met statistics for the financial year [April to March], giving a total of 103 in 2011/12 compared to 120 in 2010/11. Interestingly, the 2010/11 figure was an increase from 113 in 2009/10.

Then we have the latest stats provided by the MPA for the year November 2010 to October 2011 with an increase of 9 homicides (or 7.6 per cent).

The reason for this disparity seems to lie a cluster of homicides at the end of 2010 and the start of 2011. There were 12 in December 2010, 13 in January 2011 and 15 in February 2011.

By contrast the numbers for the end of 2011 and the start of 2012 remained low – the Met’s rolling tables show eight in December 2011, three in January 2012 and seven in February.

This also explains why there is a massive 24 per cent decrease in the homicides for the 12 months to February 2012 (104) compared to the 12 months up to 2011 (137).

Politics aside, the good news is that there is no denying that the official statistics show the number of homicides has steadily decreased since 2003.

Note: Official statistics are based on the number of homicides, which include manslaughter and infanticide as well as murder. When politicians talk of murders they are really talking about homicides. Likewise, murdermap is really a homicide map.

The Terry Gregory Murder Case

The list of Freedom of Information requests dealt with by the Metropolitan Police can make fascinating reading. The most recent from the beginning of March concern questions about ‘road spike apparatus accidents’, statistics on pickpocketing and the number of victims of knife crime in 2010 and 2011.

We have previously featured the Met’s five year list of murders and the list of unsolved murders going back to 1999.

In February there was specific request concerning Terry Gregory, who was stabbed to death in Woolwich in 2003.

Please advise us how many officers are investigating the murder of Terry Gregory… as to date nobody has been convicted of his crime.

The Met responded:

Currently no officers are dedicated solely to this investigation. However should any new and relevant information be forthcoming, then it would be investigated as a matter of course.

It is also important to note that The MPS’ Murder Review Group reviews each unsolved murder every two years, on a rolling basis, to identify and develop investigative opportunities.

At around the same time there was also a question put to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in the context of the recent convictions of two men for the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Hate Crime Double Standards
Question No: 361 / 2012
Richard Barnbrook

Please explain why 23 officers are still investigating the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 and no officers are investigating the murder of white teenagers Richard Everitt murdered in 1994 and Terry Gregory murdered in 2003?

Written response from the Mayor
Neither of the murders of Richard Everitt nor Terry Gregory are the subject of re-investigation as both were solved. Neither murder was determined as a racist killing. The facts and circumstances did not suggest that.

[Richard Barnbrook, now an independent member of the London Assembly, was elected as a candidate for the BNP in 2008.]

So we decided to look back in the archives and work out what exactly happened in the Terry Gregory case – is it solved or unsolved? The answer may actually be: Neither.

Terry Gregory was 19 when he was stabbed to death outside a pub in Woolwich, southeast London, on December 28, 2003. A suspect, George Edwin, 65, was charged with his murder and went on trial at Inner London Crown Court the following year.

Edwin claimed he pulled out a knife to frighten Terry Gregory and his friend and stop them from attacking him, but said he did not believe the knife ever made contact with the teenager.

The jury failed to reach a verdict and at a retrial in November 2004 a second jury was again deadlocked. As a result the prosecution dropped the case and it appears to have been left on file.

It is possible that further information could result in another trial but it seems highly unlikely. The Met do not include Terry Gregory in its list of undetected homicides, because the man they believe was responsible was charged and put on trial. In this sense it counts as a ‘detected’ homicide. There was also no evidence that it was a racist killing – in fact it seems to have started as an argument over an umbrella.

Tragically, Terry’s older brother Billy Gregory was murdered at the Earl of Chatham pub in Woolwich almost exactly two years later. In that case a man was convicted and jailed for life.

Read more about the Richard Everitt case on Wikipedia