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MAUREEN PIPER
Several weeks after Paula’s death, Maureen Piper mentioned to Paula’s sister,
Susan Dubost, that she had been speaking to Paula in the Post Office at 12.40pm on
the day she died. Dubost told her to make a statement to the police and she arranged
for Piper to telephone the police from Paula’s mothers house. The statement was taken
the same day by Detective Constable Gregson. Because Eddie was at work at 11.30am
and well alibied, the police were desperate. Maureen Piper’s statement threw a spanner
in the works. If the case against Eddie was to be sustained action had to be taken.
DC Gregson acted swiftly. On the same day that he had taken Piper’s statement, DC
Gregson returned to Eddie’s house. The following is an extract from a Lancashire
Police Report arising from a re-investigation of the case supervised by the Police
Complaints Authority. (PCA):
"The forensic scientist, Phillip RYDEARD, states that when he was in attendance
at the scene on 23rd June he discussed with officers present the possibility of finding
other significant items such as other ropes. Later that day DC GREGSON found the
‘practice’ rope in the drawer…"
In the drawer of a cabinet in the garage DC Gregson ‘discovered’ a piece of rope
tied into a slipping noose. This was, the police contended, a rope used by Eddie
to practice tying the noose with which he murdered his wife. But would Eddie leave
such a damming piece of evidence for the police to find ? The Lancashire Report continues:
"The officer who conducted the search of the garage on the 8th June, PC CARTWRIGHT,
is adamant that the rope was not there at the time. He recalls looking in the drawer
in which the rope was subsequently found and it was not there."
DC Gregson visited Maureen Piper at home two days later to tell her she was mistaken
about her meeting with Paula. It was in fact - DC Gregson told her - Susan Dubost
that she had seen in the Post Office. Piper knew both women very well. She lived
within a few doors of Paula’s parents and across the road from Susan Dubost. She
argued with DC Gregson, maintaining that she was not mistaken. DC Gregson told her
"We are scrubbing your statement." Later that same day Susan Dubost
made a statement that it was herself who was in the Post Office at 12.40pm
on 4th June.
BLATANT DECEIT
In September a meeting took place between the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS),
the prosecuting barrister, and Detective Chief Inspector Baines. DC Gregson was also
present. The CPS were told that Piper had confused the two women. DC Gregson failed
to inform the CPS that Piper was still adamant that she had sighted Paula in the
Post Office on the 4th June. Gregson, as the junior officer at the conference, did
not think it was his place to inform the prosecuting lawyers that Piper was vigorously
asserting that she had seen Paula on the day of her death and at a time when Eddie
was well accounted for in work. Susan Dubost’s statement was recorded as being taken
by DC Phillips. It later transpired that DC Phillips told the Lancashire Police,
who re-investigated the case, that he was on holiday at the time and had never spoken
to Susan Dubost about this matter. Yet it is his name that appears on the bottom
of the statement.
The CPS never checked the Piper evidence, or questioned the finding of the ‘practice
rope’ or investigated the startling contradictions in the police’s own records. From
the September to the following June, when the trial started, the police knew that
Piper was still adamant in her sighting. The police did nothing to inform the CPS
of this ‘mistake.’ Pipers evidence was placed in the ‘unused material’ files.
Eddies former defence took no steps to confirm Piper’s sighting and relied on the
police version that Piper had confused Paula with Dubost. The trial jury knew nothing
of Piper’s evidence. Piper’s statement was raised at the Appeal hearing. The court
ruled that her memory was faulty, not in identifying the wrong sister, but in the
timing of her meeting with Paula. She had seen Paula, but on a different week! No
evidence was offered to substantiate this and Piper remains convinced that she was
not mistaken. The Lancashire Police discovered that Piper was in company with her
friend when she saw Paula. She remembered Piper talking to a pregnant woman in the
queue. The Lancashire Police also discovered that Piper learnt of Paula’s death on
the 5th of June from another friend. She said to her friend, "I was only
talking to her yesterday in the Post Office." The Appeal Court when turning
down Eddie’s appeal refused to listen.
COMPUTER COURSE
Paula wrote in the ‘Nigel letter’ that she had secretly been meeting with Nigel
when she was supposed to be on a computer course which was run from her place of
work. Paula wrote that she had only ever attended the course on two occasions. The
police asked her friends if she had been on such a course at the place where they
all worked. They all said that she had not and if she had have been, they would definitely
have known. The Merseyside Police accepted this without any further investigation.
Eddie’s family subsequently found a letter from Paula’s employers asking why she
had not been attending the course she had enrolled on. Paula it seems, had been keeping
secrets from her friends. If Paula wasn’t attending her course, where was she going
? Realising the importance of this discovery, Eddie’s family took the letter to the
police. They never saw it again. It was never produced as evidence at the trial.
The police said that it had been lost. When the Lancashire Police conducted a re-investigation
into the case they discovered that Paula had enrolled on a computer course
at work. In April, when she wrote the ‘Nigel letter’ she had been on the course for
fourteen months, in June she would have been on the course for sixteen months and
the records show that she only attended the course twice - THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE
WROTE IN HER LETTERS. The ‘Nigel letter’ is not a suicide letter. It does not mention
suicide. The content talks about real events. The ‘Nigel letter’ discusses Eddies
relationship with Sandra Davies. So how does this fit the Crowns theory that Eddie
tricked Paula to write this letter for a pretend suicide course ? From all of this
evidence the Authorities are well aware that these letters are genuine and true.
They know that these letters have not been made up for any homework or any fictitious
course.
PROFESSOR BERNARD KNIGHT
Eddie’s defence commissioned an analysis of the case from Professor Bernard Knight,
a world famous pathologist. (He is particularly famous for his grim detective work
in the cellars and burial pits of Cromwell Street, when he literally pieced together
the case against Rosemary West). His evidence in the Gilfoyle case was never presented
at trial. This was because there was a complete lack of preparation for the trial
by Eddies former defence, who were trying to obtain expert reports to refute the
prosecution case while the trial was in progress. They did not approach one single
civilian witness to give evidence including Maureen Piper who’s existence they were
well aware of.
Because Professor Knights evidence was available at the time of the trial, the Appeal
Court refused to hear it. Professor Knight’s report comprehensively dismantled the
case built by the Crown. The scenario presented by the prosecution - which was the
only theory they were able to put forward - had Eddie taking Paula into the garage,
surprising her by snatching a noose over her head, (the other end already tied to
the beam), lifting her feet up and holding her until she was dead. Hence the importance
of the Crown’s argument that the rope was tied into a running noose. Despite the
evidence to the contrary from the mortuary assistant, it was described as a running
noose throughout the trial. But why would Paula enter the garage with Eddie ? According
to her friends, Eddie had terrified her by showing her ropes tied to the beams in
the garage on a previous occasion.
Professor Knights report concluded that the forensic evidence disproved the Crown’s
theory. Some of his criticisms of the prosecution case, in particular the lack of
any bruising or signs of a struggle, had been raised by the trial judge, forcing
the Crown’s pathologist, Doctor Burns to conclude that Paula "must have been
a willing victim!" In other words she must have assisted her husband in
her own death, by standing there while he tied a rope around her neck. The Crown’s
case went from the bizarre to the ridiculous.
Professor Knight also criticised the Crown’s assertion that suicide in pregnancy
could be virtually excluded on statistical grounds. He conducted a survey of colleagues
in other countries and obtained computer listings from medical literature which contained
numerous references to such suicides. He showed that, in fact, if anything could
be excluded on statistical grounds, it was homicide by hanging. In forty years experience
he had never encountered such a murder or heard about one from his colleagues.
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