Levi Bellfield/ Lin and Megan Russell

[Snap8TheCat]

Just seen that there’s new evidence linking him to the murders, I remember being on a thread around the time of the documentary on the murders and links being mentioned then.

Is the new evidence just the witness or anything else do we know?

I wondered about where Tobin was at the time when I watched the BBC2 doc. It sounded like the sort of horrific thing he would do as well .
Personally I think the confessions to other prisoners are not worth the paper they are written on. Everyone has another agenda somewhere.
Much though Stone sounds extremely dangerous it does seem extremely unlikely that someone would manage to leave no DNA evidence at all, but wouldn't a DNA match with Belfield have shown up at the time he was arrested? Or do they think new technology will show something up?
I'm not sure the car is much help as I seem to think there were lots of that colour/type around.

I remember the divorce thing. It was some sort of tax dodge IIRC.

I hadn't realised until this week someone could be convicted especially of such a horrendous crime on the reported say so of another crim. That seems inherently unsafe to me.

Bellfield has denied involvement in an interview/statement which is in the public domain. I would love to know who gave this monster the privilege of his own voice being used in it and why.

Well it took years to convict Robert Napper for Rachel Nickeks murder. Colin Stagg was the original suspect and was jailed.
Michael Stone was a nasty piece of work, I’m glad to have him locked up. I hope the truth comes out, if there is more to this murder.

But if it was Bellfield that did it, then wouldn’t his DNA already be linked

No. The police did not have Bellfield's DNA until 2004, well after Stone was convicted. As the police believed they already had their man for the Chillenden murders (and, indeed, continue to believe that) there would have been no reason to compare Bellfield's DNA with the DNA samples from that case.

The more recent DNA testing on the towel was carried out on behalf of the Criminal Cases Review Commission with the sole aim of seeing if the DNA belonged to Stone. The CCRC is only interested in seeing if there is reason to send Stone's case back to the Court of Appeal. They aren't there to reinvestigate the case. The sample would not have been compared with others in the police database. So it is quite possible that the DNA on the towel belongs to Bellfield but has not yet been identified as such.

Well it took years to convict Robert Napper for Rachel Nickeks murder. Colin Stagg was the original suspect and was jailed.

To be accurate, he was remanded, acquited at trial and then compensated. So, although it wasn't good, it's not comparable to what has been done to Michael Stone.

Michael Stone was a nasty piece of work, I’m glad to have him locked up.

He was a petty criminal. Three life sentences on an unsafe conviction is not okay, just because he has other (lesser) convictions.

There's either safe justice or there's no justice.

@Battleax

Re: Colin Stagg

True, but it’s incredibly rare for a defendant to be compensated for wrongful prosecution. The police conduct in trying to secure a convinction in that case was disgraceful.

Re: Michael Stone

Couldn’t agree more. The idea that it’s ok for someone to be potentially wrongfully convicted for a murder because they were a ‘wrong-un’ anyway completely undermines the whole principle of the justice system. But it is a fact that unsafe convictions of those who have had previous encounters with the law receive a lot less public interest and support than for those who have a less blemished background.